The Kingslayers' Daughter
by GilraenDernhelm
Summary: That sequel to 'I Became the Daughter and the Son' that I've been promising to write for months. Yaaaay! **If you have not read the aforementioned fic, this will be rather incomprehensible.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

Guuuuuuuuys! I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

* * *

_304 AL_

Jaime had known from the beginning that something was wrong. Perhaps it was the colour of Arya's screams, or the way her small, fragile body seemed to snap as it writhed in pain: pulled over the rack of bringing a child into the world; tortured for the entertainment of gods, or men, or whoever the fuck was responsible for this.

_You _are responsible for this_._

Jaime told himself that as he held Arya's hand; as he tried to calm her and was sworn at in response; as he realised, as if for the first time, how years of starvation and malnourishment, on the road and at Harrenhal, must have weakened her; must have turned her bones to glass and her veins to paper, so that now, the blood was pouring out of his wife; his love; as though their child were forcing its way out with a battle axe.

And she bled and bled and screamed and screamed; the midwives a tangle of bodies and crimson linen as they tried to stop the bleeding; Arya's fingernails scarring the palm of Jaime's hand; her eyes grasping at life and not finding it; her face turning grey and gaunt beneath the shadow.

'Jaime,' Arya sobbed, as the darkness took her, '_Jaime_…'

And more maesters and more midwives were being called for, and Arya's head was drooping weakly onto the pillow and not lifting up again; and Jaime was clutching the back of her neck and shouting at her –

'STARK!'

And as her eyes closed, and his heart almost ceased to beat, and the midwives continued to flicker around them, Jaime continued to shout at her, wordlessly now. He shouted things that no one else could hear; things that were only for her: that he was sorry; that it was all his fault; that she was too young and too fragile; that they should have waited; that he should have thought.

That he loved her. That he'd killed her.

An Archmaester arrived from the court of King Tommen, and shouted for horsehair, wormwood and red wine as he took one look at Arya's face and another between her legs, and swore; his tone suggesting a desire to castrate every other maester in the room.

'I must operate immediately, or we will lose both mother and child, my lord,' the Archmaester told Jaime; without greeting; without ceremony, 'I can save one, not both. Choose.'

Jaime stared at him numbly, not understanding.

'You should consider the potential consequences, my lord,' the maester continued, 'if the child turns out to be female, then perhaps –'

'I don't give a fuck if the child is female,' Jaime growled.

The maester bowed stiffly and turned his attention back to Arya as blackness took hold of Jaime's heart and suffocated it.

_I can't – I won't – I – she's – she can't – _

_Gods help me. Help me. _

_Help her._

The maester was cupping Arya's chin and pouring a little red wine into her mouth. When almost all of it spilled out again, a splash of blood on her alabaster skin, he tried again, closing her lips with both his hands and rubbing her slender throat to make her swallow.

Jaime stared down at Arya once again, and felt every thinking, sensing part of him pierced by pain and agony and horror at the sight of her: his wife; his love; grey and corpselike; quiet and small; still and helpless; a fragile little body with its life force bleeding out of it. She wasn't meant to be this way. She wasn't _made_ for being this way. She was made for being upright, and alive; her face flushed and glowing as she sparred with him in the godswood; her lips curling into a gleeful smile each time she beat him; '_Feet, _Lannister!' she would shout; her entire body quivering with rage as she shouted at him and he shouted at her; as they fought like cat and dog, a hundred times a day, about everything, about nothing. Her eyes darkening as one of her ghosts crossed her vision. Her face wrinkling comically as she laughed and laughed, and chuckled like a ticklish child as he kissed her nose, and earlobes, and ankles, and toes.

'I love you, little wolf.'

'And I love you, you stupid.'

He remembered what the world had been before her. He remembered what he had been before her. He remembered promising her, as late as yesterday morning, that he would save the child if anything went wrong. And he remembered how unconcernedly he had said it, as if nothing in the world could have been more unlikely.

'Save her,' Jaime blurted out, 'save my wife.'

And out of the depths the maester stared, nodded, and took out his knives.

The smell was horrific; the _knowledge _of the blood being hers making Jaime gag and clutch harder at her cold hand as his wife, his love, lay motionless and unconscious beneath the blades that tore her stomach open; like the ploughing of a field made of flesh. Vapour rose from the crimson abyss and clung to the clothing of the people who were stopping up her blood, and violating her red darkness with their hands, and wrenching out a bundle of flesh so pink and so bloody that it might have been her stomach, or her lungs.

The bundle of blood began to scream, and the midwives to scream in fright.

'Impossible!' one of their number shrieked.

'I don't care if it's impossible; get that child out of this room!' the maester roared, and the screaming bundle of blood was taken off someplace else while the maester – his robe stained up to the elbows in blood – sewed Arya up as though her skin were a dress; stopping only to bellow 'swab!' at the boy that was helping him, and to call for more horsehair, or more red wine.

Arya's hand was so cold in Jaime's – cold, and wet, and limp – as though she were already dead. Somewhere in the next room, their child was screaming – living – living when they were not meant to have lived, while Arya – Arya –

'Stark, don't go,' Jaime heard himself murmur; to her; to what was left of her; 'don't go. Please.'

And her face, with its closed eyes, was calm: far away from the people in black and the things that they were doing to her body; far away from him, pleading with her to stay; and gradually, the people, the shadows, the wraiths, began to ebb away from them– 'she is unlikely to breathe for much longer, my lord,' the maester said, 'you should prepare yourself,' – and finally Jaime was alone with her, with his wife, with his love, with Stark, and though the sheets had been changed and the windows thrown open to the sea, the room still smelt of blood.

_Stark, don't go. Don't go. Please._

Aunt Dorna's voice spoke from somewhere close behind him; soft and heavy with tears.

'Don't you want to see your daughter?' she asked.

'No,' Jaime snapped.

He didn't turn around. The door closed. And somewhere in the next room, a child screamed and screamed.


	2. Chapter 2

She slept for weeks. It might have been months. He didn't know.

He didn't leave her.

He needed to be there to take care of her. He needed to be there when she woke up.

Every day, it became harder to endure the sight of her closed eyes; her pale face; her small, ruined body.

Every day, it became easier to despise the child his wife had died for.

_Stark isn't dead_, he thought.

_She isn't alive either._

Uncle Kevan came many times, and said things to him about his duty to his household and his people. Aunt Dorna came many more times, and said things to him about a child needing parents; about Sansa and Tyrion, out of their minds with worry and delayed on the road south; about how Uncle Kevan wanted to stay, but had to return to King's Landing to resume his duties as Lord Regent and Protector.

Things. Things. Things.

Jaime hardly heard their voices at all. He hardly heard the child's voice either; despite Aunt Dorna's claims that it screamed day and night and never slept. The twisting, agonising guilt inside him was screaming louder than any human voice, and when it took him, he heard nothing else.

_He_ had done this to her. It was him.

He should have thought. He should have known. Brought her moon tea, or kept his cock in his fucking trousers, or _something_, instead of allowing the two of them to fuck every day for weeks and weeks and doing nothing about it.

And yet that time together, after Riverrun – on the road to the Eyrie, on the road back to Casterly Rock – those weeks had been the best of his life, and he knew that they had been the best of hers. They had been freedom and togetherness. They had been release. And as he pulled his mind away from them, he found Cersei standing in the room with him; a ghost; her torso peppered with arrows; her eyes cold and triumphant.

'Too busy fucking your little Northern whore?' she spat; her lips dripping blood; her gaze shifting; first in anger, and then in pity, to Myrcella; a ghost alive; leaning gracefully against the opposite wall; and avoiding her mother's eyes while she clutched a Dornish longbow almost twice as tall as she was.

Jaime watched her look at him, Myrcella: the child that was not his child; her face bearing the look of vicious, disdainful condemnation that she reserved only for him.

She said nothing.

Her silence was worse than Cersei's words.

_We were on the run, Stark and I_, Jaime wordlessly told her,_ we expected to be killed at every moment of every day. Neither of us was thinking._

'_You're the adult_,' Myrcella spat,_ '_you_ should_ _have been thinking.' _

Jaime turned the words inward, watched mutely as the ghosts disappeared, then jumped as a small, frightened voice abruptly pierced the darkness.

'Uncle Tywin?' the voice said.

Tremours rippled across Jaime's skin as his hearing returned with a violent rush and his sharp, water dancer's senses collided brutally with the sound of the world; with the waves crashing against the Rock below; with the barely-perceptible sound of Arya breathing; with _that child_ screaming unreservedly in the next room; as though it were being tortured.

_Why is it screaming like that?_

And Jaime's little cousin Janei, the one who had spoken, was standing behind him on the threshold; her curly hair hanging wild and undressed about her shoulders; her tiny, delicate right hand reaching above her head to clutch at the door handle. Her face was white with terror, and her golden green eyes – Father's eyes – were wide with innocent disbelief, until she recognised Jaime, and her face broke into a smile.

'Sorry, Jaime,' she said, with a guileless cheerfulness that only a six-year-old could manage under such circumstances, 'I thought I saw a ghost.'

Jaime blinked at her and said nothing; momentarily paralysed by the onslaught of sound that continued to assault his senses.

And with the burning return of sound came the memory of his father; a voiceless, bone-deep horror that gripped him hard as Janei pulled the door shut behind her and left him; her skipping footsteps echoing loudly down the corridor.

Jaime sat motionless, and remembered.

Arya lying on her chamber floor the morning after the Red Wedding; too distressed to cry. The light dying countless times in Tyrion's eyes at the cruel, untrue, eternal words: 'you who killed your mother to come into the world.' Father, doing horrible things to the people he loved, every day, until the day he died.

Arya's eyes were closed now; deaf to the sound of his breathing; deaf to the sound of his heartbeat; deaf to the sound of existence being screamed out, unacknowledged, in the next room: the existence of a child who was Jaime's by blood, but that he would much rather have dead if it meant he could have Stark back again.

Jaime drew a shaky breath. It came out sounding like a sob.

He was a true Lannister after all. He was his father's son.

And somehow he found his hand slipping out of Arya's and laying her hand softly across her chest.

And somehow he found himself at the inter-leading door: before the door, and opening it.

* * *

The child's screaming, he discovered, was made infinitely worse by the presence of four young nursemaids huddled around the crib in the corner; one shushing, one singing, one crying, and one (the youngest and apparently the most sensible) telling the others to shut up and leave the child alone.

'Excellent idea,' Jaime surmised; relishing the way that all four jumped out of their skins, 'now get out.'

As the girls mumbled their apologies and left, their skirts rustling as they approached the door, the child continued to scream at a pitch so unbearable and so potentially harmful to human ears that all thoughts of hesitancy or guilt or trepidation or whatever the fuck else he was meant to be feeling fell from Jaime's mind, and before he could stop himself, he was storming across the room and poking his head over the edge of the crib.

'Seven _hells_, will you shut up?' he snapped.

The shrieking bundle of flesh obligingly stopped screaming, and stared bemusedly up at Jaime as though he were a madman.

Jaime, no less confused, stared back at it.

The sight left him flabbergasted.

Her fingers and her toes…they were so fucking _small_ – _how could they be that small?_ Were they meant to look like that?

He put his hand into the cradle and gave the infant's hand an unceremonious poke– just to be sure that the appendage was indeed meant to be half the size of a pepper pot.

Quick as a cat, so quickly that Jaime yelped in surprise, the child snatched hold of his index finger and tightly imprisoned it within the bars of her tiny fingers.

Jaime tried to pull away. The child would not release him.

'Let go,' he snapped.

The child stubbornly tightened her grip and stared up at him with a steady, confident and oddly-familiar condemnation that made her seem far too stern for any baby, anywhere, and for the split second that he could bear to look at her face, he could have sworn that he saw judgment in her eyes; as though he were looking up at her and she looking grimly down at him. And in a painful flash of memory and regret and blame, he realised where he had seen that look before.

* * *

On the day of Tyrion's birth, Jaime had been taken in to see his mother. She lay pale and fragile in a bed of blood; her stomach distended and swollen and _red_ from the brother or sister that wouldn't come out. Father stood at the window, half-looking-out, half-looking-in; his face a stone wall.

From the height of his eight-and-a-half years, Jaime had found that callous.

It was only today – two-and-thirty years later – that Jaime realised that the old bastard hadn't wanted to look weak in front of his son and heir. He hadn't wanted Jaime to see that he could feel.

Jaime's mother had reached out for him, and he had taken her freezing hand with both his own.

'You have a good heart,' Mother said, her green eyes dim in a haze of pain; 'go where it takes you, and do it without fear. Watch over your sister. Watch over your lord father. Make him laugh from time to time. He needs it.'

Tears began to sting Jaime's eyes.

'Yes, Mother.'

'Watch over your brother or sister who will be born today. They will need you every day of their lives.'

His mouth opened – he was going to tell her that he promised – when his mother's eyes tore violently away from Jaime's towards where his father stood at the window.

It only lasted for a second. Less than that: a split second. And in her eyes, he saw two things. Abhorrence at what her husband felt towards the child that she knew would mean her death. And terror. Terror of what he might do when she died.

The expression had vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and Jaime had kissed her, and promised to do all that she asked. He had been hustled from the room, the maester had taken out his knives, and three hours later, his mother was dead; her place taken by a screaming, deformed bundle of flesh that nobody cared for but him.

Jaime convinced himself, for years afterwards, that he hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary that day. But the memory would not leave him, and neither would the knowledge that his mother had foreseen the nightmare that Father would come to represent in his second son's life, and for one, split second, she had hated him for it.

In his daughter's eyes, Jaime saw everything that he had once seen in his mother's – in that one, split second of life, and as he looked at her for the first time – really looked at her – he saw her.

Her eyes were large and grey; like a stormy sea; like the wolfswood.

_Like Arya._

Her tiny cheekbones and her tiny jawline were exquisitely delicate, but exuded a strange, unaccountable kind of strength, and her head was covered in a fine layer of golden fuzz that made candlelight dance within it.

_Like me._

And her hand was still clutching his finger and refusing to let it go; and her eyes were smouldering stubbornly in a way that was utterly devoid of good sense or rational thinking.

_Like us._

The ensuing shame burned so deeply that he nearly choked on it. Even though he didn't hate her. Even though he couldn't.

Love came next. And the hurt of it was so agonising that he felt the stump of his right hand sear and burn, and his missing hand emerge again in the hands of the child that was his; in her eyes that were Arya's eyes; in all of her that was Arya; in all of her that was him.

The child's fingers contracted suddenly and held his tighter. Her grey eyes still looked into his as though she would gladly have used a battle-axe on him had one been on hand; but they were wide as well, as though pleading with him, _don't change your mind again, don't leave, don't leave again - _

'Would you like to hold her?' Aunt Dorna said behind him; making him jump violently.

The nursemaids must have called her, fearful of what he might do.

'Jaime?' his aunt insisted; her eyes wide and exhausted from lack of sleep, and he heard himself babbling at her, _No, I'll break her, I'll drop her, I'll crush her; get someone better; get someone who knows how – _

'Don't be silly,' Aunt Dorna said, 'come. You do it like this…'

The child was heavier than he had expected. Before long, his arms began to ache. He was afraid to move at all, so he just stood where he was; looking down in half-wonder, half-terror at the enormous eyes that were gradually unmanning him as they looked into his; the tiny fingers, the tiny toes, the impossible smallness of the miniscule human being that he was apparently meant to raise and educate in the ways of the world.

_How the fuck do you raise a child? Where do you start? What does she eat? _Can_ she eat? Will she be this small forever? When does she talk? When does she start walking?_

_Oh gods. Walking. Banging into things. Picking things up. Trying to eat things. Where are we going to put all the knives? And the swords? Shit. What'll we do with the swords? Lock them up? Forbid her to use them? Give her one? Tell her they're only for decoration?_

Aunt Dorna was sitting tensely on the edge of her seat, watching him, as though expecting the child to start screaming at any moment. But the little one remained perfectly quiet, her eyes gradually becoming hooded and sleepy, and eventually, after an eternity, she began to rub her little head against the leather of Jaime's doublet as though it were a pillow made of silk.

'That means she wants to sleep,' Aunt Dorna told him; now slouching, half-asleep, in her chair, 'you were just the same, when you were a babe in arms. I should take her; you can give her to me – '

'Aunt Dorna, she's beautiful,' Jaime heard himself blurt out; sounding for all the world like the sentimental fools at court that he detested.

On Aunt Dorna's face he saw a combination of relief, suspicion, affection and fear.

'I'll put her to bed,' she insisted.

'I'd like to stay with her for a little longer,' Jaime replied, 'you can go to bed if you'd like.'

'I'd rather not, Jaime.'

'Why?'

'I don't think you should be alone with her.'

'_Don't you_?'

Jaime's last words were pronounced with such vehemence that his Aunt looked at him, appalled, as though he'd slapped her.

His words had the desired effect, however, and she left without a word; banging the door behind her in a thoroughly unladylike fashion before storming away down the corridor; the sound of sobs beginning to echo against the stone vaulting.

Jaime ignored the pinprick of guilt rising within him and looked down at Joanna once again. She was yawning, her mouth forming a diminutive O as she once again rubbed her head against his doublet. Again, he touched her hand, and again, her fingers closed around his, and she made a strange, gurgling sound in the front of her throat that sounded oddly like contentment.

'Stark, she's beautiful,' he murmured, softly, and the realisation that his wife wasn't standing next to him was dreadful when it came.

Suddenly he felt a stirring in the next room; a silence filling up with a small thing that was also the world. He felt breath that was also his breath growing deeper, and lungs that were his as well filling up with it. He heard a rustling of dark hair against clean cushions; rustling in exactly the same way it did when Arya tossed her head, in nightmare or in love. And he heard a deep, low tone of sound, of a part of her voice that spoke only for him, saying softly, again and again, his name.

The thought flying from his mind would normally have made him drop whatever he was carrying and run, as quickly as he could, to where he wanted to be. Today, however, he only clutched Joanna closer to him; he felt her feel it and begin to cry; and when he walked back through the inter-leading door, and found Stark's eyes open, and staring at him, and her skin flushing red with life, and pain, and life, he found that he could only tell her what he had told her moments ago.

'Stark, she's beautiful.'

He saw his wife, his love, trying to smile at him, and her eyelids drooping as she failed to manage it.

'Bring her here, Lannister,' Arya commanded, and for the first time in his life, Jaime was happy to do as he was told.


	3. Chapter 3

_305 AL_

Dear Cousin Tommen

I have decided to write to you because you have a nice face and I don't think you'll be horrid to me like everyone else is being. They are all in such a bad mood that I can't even say 'hello' without being shouted at, and I don't even have Father to talk to because he's in King's Landing working for you. You should order him to answer his mail. He can't be very good at being Lord Regent and Protector if he doesn't even reply to his letters.

Everybody is in a bad mood because Cousin Jaime and Cousin Arya are having a big fight because he told her how sad he was while she was sleeping in the weeks after Cousin Joanna was born. Arya got very angry and called him all sorts of horrible things before kicking him out of their rooms, and Jaime was very sad for about a day before he started calling _her _all sorts of horrible things, and now they can't even be in the same room together without starting a fight. They even drew their swords the other day at breakfast, and Mother grabbed hold of me and took me out, even though I wanted to stay and watch.

I don't understand why Arya is so cross that Jaime was sad. Everybody gets sad, don't they? Or maybe Cousin Arya doesn't like Cousin Jaime to be sad because then it makes _her _sad.

You probably want to know about Cousin Joanna, because everybody _always_ wants to know about her when she isn't even that interesting and she can't even talk probably, because she's only a few months old! All she does is glug glug glug in her cradle all day long, and everyone acts like it's so fascinating when it all it is boring! Glug glug glug glug. See? Boring.

Sometimes she'll be really quiet, and the next second she'll scream and scream and not stop. But she has a nice smile, and when I dangle my necklace over her crib she giggles and tries to catch it. One time she wouldn't give it back and the chain broke, and when_ I_ ended up screaming and crying, nobody even noticed, because everybody in this stupid castle is crying or screaming all the time now, and sometimes both. Nobody even noticed.

Father would have noticed.

I hate it here. I have asked Mother if I can go back to King's Landing, but she said no. Could you _order _Father to send me to King's Landing? Then he'd have to do it.

I hope you are feeling better and don't think of Cousin Cersei as much as you used to.

Your affectionate cousin

Janei

* * *

My Lady

If you have been foolish, then I know that you can plead your youth. But really: did you not consider the consequences of your being so indiscrete as to send a letter containing such sensitive information _by raven_? Shall I tell you how I received your letter? It was given to me by _Lord Varys_, who obtained it from an unscrupulous maester who thought that he was selling it to my enemies. Uncle Tyrion informs me that it would be rather calamitous were the enemies of the realm to discover that a marriage vital enough to unite two such great houses as Stark and Lannister is collapsing before it has even begun; and as for the unfortunate maester who was merely trying to earn himself a few dragons, he has had to be executed. Were it not for your recklessness, he would still be alive – admittedly as a thief of other people's oxygen, but alive nonetheless.

You may rest assured that I have said nothing of this unfortunate affair to your lord father – at present, he has more than enough to worry about – but if this occurs again, you will leave me no choice. Should you wish to write to me again, ask Lady Arya to put your letter into the _dispatch box – _not the music box or the snuff box or whatever other boxes you are accustomed to seeing around you – but the _dispatch box _that she keeps in her study (do _not_ ask Lord Jaime to do it: I am not entirely sure that he knows what a dispatch box is). The letter will be locked up inside and sent to me, and only I will be able to open it. In that way, we may avoid any future inconveniences brought on by your desire to unburden yourself.

I remain, my lady, your most obedient servant

King Tommen Baratheon


	4. Chapter 4

_305 AL_

No sooner had Arya pulled on her boots that the noise started: the high-pitched grumbling that every day announced her daughter's final wake-up for the night; just before dawn, when the world was dark enough and cold enough to be terrifying if you were small, and vulnerable, and helpless. Arya passed through the inter-leading door and saw the nursemaid, Lanna, stirring promptly from her bed in a tangle of blankets and confusion.

'Sleep, Lanna,' Arya ordered, bending over the crib and taking Joanna in her arms as Lanna went noisily back to sleep.

Joanna squealed, and began to cry. Arya placed her firmly on her hip and took her back into the empty bedroom; where she walked up and down, and talked, expecting any moment to see Jaime peering at her from beneath the bedclothes; his hair a thick, delightful, morning mess; 'Little wolf,' he would say, 'is it not a little early to be up and about?'

But he wasn't there, of course, and he had not been for almost a year.

It had been a week after her awakening that he had come to her. She would never forget the face that he had worn; like that of a dog that not only expected to be kicked, but that would have inflicted punishment on itself had such a thing been possible.

When he had told her, it had been like a darkness passing over the sun: a deep darkness and a familiar one; the bits and pieces of Tywin that she saw and felt everywhere inside herself becoming one inside _him_: where she had never seen them; where they had never belonged. Everything that she had hated in his father, everything that she hated in herself: there, in front of her, in him; her husband and her love.

_We told you so_, she had imagined her ghosts saying to her, _we told you so, but no, you wouldn't care to hear._

She had tried to reassure herself by thinking about the thousand infinite ways in which Jaime adored Joanna: he talked to her, he played with her, he sang to her, he told her stories, and he never seemed to want to stop holding her: all the time, he would hold her, until his arms ached.

Then she had thought about Tyrion.

And she hadn't been able to stop thinking about Tyrion.

And after that she had been able to think of nothing but what might happen if she died.

It would all have been so much easier had she been inclined to hate the child that she was too young to raise; whose birth had torn her body apart. It would have been easier, had she felt that way.

But she had loved the noisy little shit with all her heart and soul from the moment that Jaime had placed her in her arms; and her love, and her fear, had made her grow teeth.

'This is _absurd_!' Jaime had exclaimed.

'Is it?' Arya had snapped, 'how do I know that if I drop dead tomorrow, you won't decide that hating her is easier after all?'

'BECAUSE IT ISN'T!'

'DON'T YOU SHOUT AT ME LIKE I'M IN THE WRONG!'

Jaime had passed his hand over his eyes at that, and had made a visible effort to be calm.

'I am deeply sorry for what happened, and I despise myself for allowing it to happen,' Jaime had said, 'but…'

His calm had deserted him, then.

' – why am I always the one doing the apologising?' Jaime had growled.

'Why am I always the one doing the forgiving?' Arya had spat in reply.

She had wanted to take that back the minute she had said it. But she hadn't taken it back, of course, and they had argued, miserably, for another three hours before she had kicked him out of their chambers with despair turning her insides to charcoal.

Why couldn't he see? It didn't matter how much she had trusted him before. Before, she had not been a mother.

_Even if I have no fucking idea what I'm doing._

Arya looked now at Joanna; who was still complaining vehemently (mercifully in Baby rather than the Common Tongue); her little face twisted in an agony of righteous indignation at the injustice of the world.

Arya sighed. If Joanna could only _tell her _what was wrong, then she wouldn't feel so stupid all the time. She glanced over to where Nymeria, a proficient in the art of understanding the child's incomprehensible googooing and gagaing, lay dozing at the foot of the bed.

'Is she sick?' Arya asked the wolf.

Nymeria sniffed in her sleep and made no sign that she had heard her. Arya took that as a good sign (the last time something had been wrong, Nymeria had bitten her), and began to scold her daughter.

'It's no use moaning about it, Jo,' Arya observed as she walked up and down and up and down and glared shrewdly into the expressive little face that glared right back at her, 'I fed you _half an hour ago_. There isn't any more that I could give you, and even if there was, I wouldn't.'

'Shit!' Joanna sweetly squealed, sounding very proud of herself as Arya's heart sank in despair at the repetition of what had been the first (and apparently the only) word that the child had managed to retain from her surroundings.

'Jo,' Arya said, as sternly as she could, 'I have told you that you're not allowed to use that word.'

'Shit!' Joanna grumbled; as though nothing could be more odious than being awake at this time of the morning.

_Go back to sleep, then!_ Arya grumpily thought.

'Seven hells, you _are _in a bad mood this morning,' Arya said; her hand touching her daughter's golden hair; 'your father isn't a morning person either, which is odd; considering the Kingsguard, and…the army, and…all those other early morning things he's always had to do…what's that? No, stupid, I haven't seen him. I told you. He's up North dealing with the Westerlings…yes, I might have gone with him. Once upon a time. But then I'd have to take _you_, and if the stupid Westerlings are as bad at swordplay as they are at rebellion, then you could be hit by a stray arrow. Or run over by a horse. Or worse still, mistaken for supper.'

'Shit?' Joanna suggested.

'Yes, dear,' Arya acknowledged, 'I don't like the idea either…what?...I know. I miss him too. But he –'

She closed her eyes tight – and then squeezed her eyes tight – at the memory of Jaime's face on the day that he had left to deal with those idiotic Westerlings. Arya had stood in the forecourt, with Joanna in her arms and Aunt Dorna and Janei by her side, and the entire household at her back, to formally see him off. She hadn't spoken to him, nor he to her, in weeks. Jaime had kissed Janei, and let Aunt Dorna kiss him. The darkness of his crimson Lannister armour had only made his hair seem more golden and his face seem more pale, and the love she still felt had struck her so hard it had hurt.

_I can't bear it. I love him so much._

Jaime came to stand in front of her.

Without looking at Arya, he had touched Joanna's cheek and kissed her forehead. Then his eyes had swept briefly from his daughter's face to his wife's; his cheeks reddening slightly, as though he didn't know what to say. The emerald in his eyes had burned like fire, and had then withdrawn, as though they themselves had been burned, and he had inclined his head slightly and formally before turning and beginning to stride away.

'Please don't get killed,' Arya had blurted; sounding like the child she was.

He had stopped in his tracks – a second, an eternity – his face in profile as he turned to look back at her, and then stopped halfway; remembering that they were arguing, and that she didn't trust him anymore.

He had remained in that position for several seconds. Then he had walked composedly away from her without a word of reply, and though Arya herself had stayed obstinately silent, Nymeria had begun to howl sadly, and had only stopped after a day and a half.

That had been…two?...three?...four months ago? Arya didn't even know. She received letters once a week that began, unfailingly, with _little wolf_ or _Stark_, and that contained, unfailingly, questions about the welfare of their daughter and nothing else. Every single letter was dictated to a secretary rather than written in Jaime's own hand, and though Arya's rational mind knew this to be the result of his childish handwriting and the inconveniently long periods of time that it took him to produce it, her not-inconsiderably-sized irrational mind grew more irritated with it – and more hurt by it – by the day.

A contented sigh broke her reverie. Joanna had fallen asleep in her arms; one impossibly-pink cheek resting against the black brocade of Arya's high-neck gown, and her hair was so golden and her face so delicate and her eyelids so sweet and pale that all of her seemed a beautiful shock against the dark of the material.

'Jaime, she's beautiful_,_' she heard herself say.

But Jaime couldn't hear her.

The bells of the sept began to ring. In the corridor outside, Arya could hear the guards changing, and the castle waking up. In ten minutes, her maid would arrive, and scold her for dressing herself. Five minutes after that, she would return with breakfast. Half an hour after that, Hill would arrive with the morning's dispatches. And two hours after that, it would be time for her morning levy: sitting, listening, ruling, and pretending to care.

Joanna woke up again, and began to cry. She always did, whenever she heard the bells.

Arya kept walking, up and down, and sang softly to her daughter a Northern song that she could barely remember:

_I heard a winter tree in song_

_Its leaves were birds; a hundred strong_

_When all at once, it ceased to sing,_

_For every leaf had taken wing._


	5. Chapter 5

She attended her morning levy.

She welcomed refugees fleeing the fighting in the Westerlands.

She confiscated a disputed valley being fought over by two lords.

She listened to a lordling complain for half an hour about the rainy weather in the interior.

She pointed out to the lordling that the weather had nothing to do with her.

* * *

She called a halt after four hours.

Through the halls she went back up to the rooms that were her rooms now, not Jaime's.

Through the inter-leading door she found Lanna the nursemaid asleep. Through the inter-leading door she found Joanna's crib empty.

* * *

From the inter-leading door she felt a rush of incomprehension and fear and horror.

From the inter-leading door she felt the whole world shatter.

* * *

From the bed Arya shook the girl awake. From the bed Lanna sobbed that she couldn't remember.

From the corridor Arya summoned the guard. From the forecourt she summoned everyone else.

In her mind she knew that Joanna could not go far.

In her mind she knew that she _had_ gone far.

From the depths of her mind, she called Nymeria to her.

In the depths of her mind, she could not find her.

* * *

On her feet she searched the castle all morning. She did not find Nymeria. She did not find her daughter.

* * *

From the back of her horse she searched the hills and woods all day, with men in red at her side and in front of her.

In the front of her mind, she needed to think, and act, and lead.

In the back of her mind she screamed and wept.

From the depths of her soul she wanted Jaime.

In the depths of her soul he wasn't there.

* * *

In the back of her mind, she called again for Nymeria. In the back of her mind, there was no response; the wall between her mind and her wolf's mind like brick instead of silk.

* * *

From the back of her horse, she finally wrote to Jaime, telling him what had happened.

From the back of her horse, she felt tears beginning in her eyes and holes tearing at her sanity.

Inside herself, she heard her ghosts: 'we told you, but you didn't care to hear.'

Inside herself, she saw her daughter looking up at her and smiling with the bright, guileless eyes shining.

Insider herself she saw her daughter walk for the first time, toddling on her short legs to where Jaime stood sparring in the yard; grabbing hold of his leg for balance, making him yelp in surprise.

Inside herself she saw Jo's sounds becoming words.

Inside herself she saw Jaime staring delightedly as Jo spoke for the first time, while Aunt Dorna glared disapprovingly and muttered something about the child having the worst parents in the world.

Inside herself, she saw the empty crib again; the empty crib that was also an empty herself, and she was hissing and snapping and lashing out at the hands that were reaching suddenly out to keep her in her saddle; _aren't you tired, my lady, why not retire, my lady, there is nothing more you can do my lady – _

'DON'T TOUCH ME!' she screamed.

Inside herself she saw her daughter where she saw her ghosts: in the feasting hall, with the rats, and the blood; and herself, hopeless, slipping in it.

Inside herself she saw herself; saw herself fail again.

Outside herself, someone tried to touch her.

Outside herself, she felt her dagger lash out and warm blood spatter her clothing.

Outside herself she heard screaming for a maester, felt hands seizing her and taking her weapons away, saw a man in red before her doubling up and collapsing, clutching his stomach.

Outside herself, she screamed.

Inside herself, she screamed.

The trees around her were like towers, and above them, night was falling.

* * *

From the back of her horse she was pulled to the ground.

From the ground she pulled out another dagger; pulled out another scream; pulled out another shower of blood.

From the ground she was dragged onto the back of another horse.

From the back of the horse she tried to strangle its rider.

* * *

In her rooms she was locked and put with women and a maester.

In her rooms she beat her fists bloody on the door and screamed.

In her rooms the maester had guards hold her down.

In her rooms the maester poured essence of nightshade down her throat.

* * *

In her dreams the dark trees reared up around her like black towers reaching to the skies.

In her dreams she saw Jaime in the woods; the fingers of his remaining hand twitching as he moved away from her towards a patch of darkness that she had been pushing at all day, but had never crossed.

In the patch of darkness in her dreams she saw Nymeria curled up, awake.

In Nymeria's fur she saw her daughter, wrapped up in the fur as though it were an ocean.

In her dreams she saw Joanna's tiny fingers combing through the fur, as though to soothe the guilt that Arya felt pouring steadily out of the wolf as Jaime dismounted and swept the girl up in his arms; covering her face in kisses and calling her a stupid, reckless child.

'How in seven hells did you get here?' he demanded.

'Shit?' Joanna helpfully offered, and fell silent as her father clutched her tight to him.

Over Joanna's shoulder, Arya could see that he was fighting back tears.

'Don't ever do that to me again,' he murmured, 'never again. Never again.'

In her dreams she saw her husband wonder silently how a one-year-old child could get this far into the woods by herself.

In her dreams she saw her husband glare suddenly at Nymeria.

'Are you responsible for this?' Jaime demanded.

Nymeria whimpered in response, and looked resentfully at Joanna, who was now contentedly sucking her thumb.

Jaime caught the hint, and looked Jo straight in the eye.

'Are _you _responsible for this?' he asked his daughter.

In her dreams the little girl stared innocently and mutely back at him.

In her dreams she saw Jaime continue to stare at Joanna, as though by sight alone she could tell him how she had come to be here.

In her dreams she felt her heart contract at the intensity of his stare.

In her dreams she told herself that he was seeing the moment that he could kill her; the child that had almost killed his wife.

Nobody would ever know. He only had to hold her a fraction too hard, and leave her; her bones crushed to powder.

In her dreams she saw Jaime kiss their daughter's forehead.

In her dreams she saw Jaime take their daughter back to his horse; Nymeria padding softly after them like a ghost.

In her dreams, Jaime said, 'Come, little one. Let's take you back to you mother.'


	6. Chapter 6

They had been spotted at dawn: Jaime, alone, holding Jo in front of him in the saddle while Nymeria loped sulkily beside them.

The guards had allowed Arya to dash out of the chamber they'd locked her in; the after-effects of the essence of nightshade making her limbs feel like cement. She had flown down the stairs, and arrived in the forecourt, and…and…

She couldn't talk about what she had felt. It would drive her to madness.

She and Jaime had given Jo a bath and had put her to bed. The little shit had kicked and splashed and laughed quite innocently, and now, while her parents sat side-by-side on the floor of her nursery with their backs against the wall, too exhausted to get as far as a chair, Jo was sleeping soundly, as though she _hadn't_ just gone off on a mysterious and unsanctioned adventure.

Nymeria lay in front of where Arya and Jaime sat, trying to sleep.

She did not succeed.

'I swear by the old gods and the new that that's _all there is to it_,' Jaime testily insisted; his emerald eyes wide and exhausted.

'You were napping in the saddle and you had some conveniently-prophetic dream?' Arya snorted; growing more frustrated by the minute; 'that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!'

'Why is it?' Jaime snapped; looking hurt; 'you say you had one too.'

'_I did_!' Arya exclaimed; feeling guilty; 'I just…I just don't understand what's happened.'

'Well I don't either,' Jaime declared; folding in his arms in that way of his way that he thought made him look intensely serious, but in fact made him look quite hilarious; 'so let's not quarrel about it.'

Arya snorted, and looked away from him. Of course she didn't really think he was lying. Jaime was capable of many different kinds of stupidity, but staging a disappearance to get back into her good books wasn't one of them.

Arya wondered if Jo's little outing would have ended differently if she had decided, after she woke from her long sleep, to trust Jaime instead of shutting him out.

She looked down at Nymeria, and realised that it wouldn't have happened at all.

'They tell me you stabbed two people and attempted to strangle a third,' Jaime ventured; by way of a conversation-opener.

'I lost my mind,' Arya testily replied, 'been doing that a lot lately.'

Jaime cast his emerald eyes downwards, and they flickered, first from her, to Joanna's cradle a few feet away.

Arya felt her heart soften.

'Jaime, was it…very awful for you?' she asked.

Jaime turned his golden head and looked at her as he might have done in the old days; with a tender lack of surprise at her concern.

'When I first received the letter, yes,' Jaime quietly replied, 'but then I thought of you alone in this, little wolf. And I –'

His jaw tensed, as it always did when he was agitated.

'Why didn't you write to me immediately?' he suddenly demanded; his tone hard like ice; 'why wait until hours had passed?'

'I thought we might find her before we needed to write to you,' Arya snapped in reply; her heart raw, like steel; 'with you fighting a war and everything.'

Jaime leaned abruptly forward as though he wanted to snap her neck, with no trace of his earlier gentleness.

'You waited because you thought I would find her and kill her, didn't you?' he growled; his hackles raised for battle; his eyes fire, and filling her up with nothing but misery.

Arya tried to spit out a reply that would make her look strong.

'That's…that's not what I thought at all,' she stammered instead; like a child learning to talk; 'I'm…I'm just telling you what happened.'

And suddenly she couldn't be in the room anymore. Her heart was throbbing suddenly and painfully in regret, Jaime's face was dissolving as tears stung her eyes, and she was in no mood to play the stupid adolescent girl by shedding them.

She barked at Nymeria to follow her; she leapt up into a crouch in order to be out the door so much more quickly – 'Stark, don't –' she heard Jaime say; and she lashed out as she felt his hands pull her back.

She struggled as he pulled her into his arms as though nothing had happened, as though the months hadn't happened, as though today hadn't happened, and the things she loved about him began to flow back with touch: his warmth, his smell, the safeness of him, his merciless compassion, and as she gazed into his face that was more lined than she remembered it – though the eyes gazing no less deep, the spirit no less all of her – the fingers of his hands were at the tears on her cheeks; and then his lips were kissing the tears on her cheeks; and then his lips were kissing her lips and his arms circling her back, and she was falling and being caught and aching that they were two people instead of one.

_How could I ever think that I could be without – that I couldn't – _

Arya buried her hands in Jaime's hair, and let him coax her mouth open and make her groan against his lips and surrender. His tongue was hot in her mouth and his mouth hot on her skin as he kissed the base of her throat, and the nape of her neck, and her eyelids and nose and mouth; everything familiar, everything intoxicatingly wonderful for being so.

'I'm sorry,' Jaime murmured; his lips brushing hers as he spoke.

'I'm sorry I –,' Arya whispered, 'I never thought you would hurt her, I…I was just…afraid, I'm so afraid…'

Jaime tucked a loose strand of hair behind Arya's ear; his fingers lingering at her jaw and the skin at her earlobe; his smile wide and sad; his smile him, him –

'What are you afraid of, Stark?' he gently asked.

She wanted to put her head in the crook of his shoulder and sleep there.

'Too many people I love have died because I couldn't save them.'

'That is nonsense, Stark.'

'What if she needs me some day…really, really needs me…and I'm too busy falling apart to help her?'

Jaime smiled softly at her, like someone waking from a long sleep to a beautiful sight.

'That's simple, Stark,' he said, 'don't fall apart.'

'It's not that simple,' she protested.

Jaime kissed her gently, and pulled her closer to him.

'My love,' he murmured, 'it's that simple.'


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter notes

Though it is possible to work out the passage of time and character ages from the dates, I'll save everyone the trouble this time round. This chapter takes place a year after the previous one. Tommen is fourteen and Myrcella fifteen.

* * *

306 AL

Myrcella dodged Ser Meryn's admirable attempt to bar her path and flung open the doors to Tommen's chambers with the letter still clutched in her fist.

She found her brother on his back, with his member buried in one whore and his bottom being stroked by another.

'Oh gods, TOMMEN!' Myrcella shrieked; bile rising in her throat as her brother, noticing her, suddenly began to squirm and blush with all the embarrassment of a child caught in the pantry after dark.

'Myrcella!' Tommen squealed in horror; trying to both disentangle himself and cover himself up; 'stop _looking_, you shouldn't be – you _shouldn't_ –'

He attempted to rise several times, but the whores were still 'working' despite his protests and did not seem to want to release him.

In another life, Myrcella might have found the situation embarrassing, mortifying; even funny. But now.

The sight of her brother's nakedness made her nauseous. She wanted to look away, but she couldn't. She wanted to know how Mother and Uncle Jaime could have looked at each other in this condition, and felt anything apart from revulsion. She wanted to know. She didn't know.

'Myrcella this is _not_ a condition in which a brother should receive his – WILL YOU DESIST, LADIES?'

The ladies in question desisted almost grudgingly; the one Tommen had been coupling with sighing with regret as he slowly drew his member out of her. It was long, red and hard.

Myrcella looked. Myrcella didn't understand.

Tommen hastily threw on a gold brocade dressing gown, and set about paying the whores from his own pocket, seeing them out personally and thanking them graciously for their 'kind service'. His kittens, meanwhile, were hopping resentfully back up onto the bed and reclaiming the space that they saw as their own, except for one snow-white beauty that remained stretched out in Tommen's chair; the sunlight glistening in his coat of snow.

Tommen scooped up the kitten in question, seated himself, and offered Myrcella wine and the chair opposite him. Myrcella sat, and drained the cup in one gulp; studying her little brother the king as he scratched his kitten between the ears and made soothing noises to help the little animal fall asleep again.

Tommen had grown a lot in the past two years. His face was longer, and thinner, and lined where it should not be.

Mother's death had been hard on him.

He was tall, but not gangly, though he had grown very quickly in a very short space of time. And he was gentle, despite Uncle Tyrion's best efforts. Myrcella loved him for it, and feared what Margaery Tyrell would do about it when Uncle Tyrion deemed Tommen mature enough not to be completely undone by her.

'I don't know why you're looking so disapproving,' Tommen mumbled.

'Yes, you do,' Myrcella replied; pouring herself another cup of wine.

'_You _could have knocked,' Tommen insisted.

'And _you _could have dismissed that idiot Trant long ago,' Myrcella rejoined; sitting back in her chair; 'do you know he flatly refused to let me in?'

'He's only doing his job!' Tommen blushed.

Myrcella cocked an eyebrow at him.

'As a glorified bodyguard while you amuse yourselves with – what are they exactly?'

Tommen looked at her as though she were the worst human being in the world.

'Their names,' he huffed, 'are Violet and Rose.'

'Whores,' she corrected.

'They have names!' Tommen innocently contended.

'You were coincidentally sent two whores called _Violet and Rose_?' Myrcella mocked.

Tommen stuck his bottom lip out in displeasure.

'They were a present from Uncle Tyrion,' he declared.

'Uncle Tyrion gives you too many presents,' Myrcella stated, 'he can't have whores now that he's married, so giving them to you is the next best thing. I don't think Lady Sansa would be happy.'

'Lady Sansa has worse things to be unhappy about, with her at Winterfell and Uncle Tyrion here,' Tommen told her; earnestly shaking his head; 'though it's better than Uncle Tyrion being surrounded by Northern lords who'd cut his throat at the first opportunity. I maintain it's his own fault. Him and his smart mouth.'

And with that, he began to stroke the kitten in his lap, as he always did when he was agitated.

'There, there, my little love,' he murmured; his face curving into an expression of utmost sweetness, 'everything will be _fine_.'

'I doubt it,' Myrcella snapped, 'what's this?'

She tossed the letter, now ball-shaped from its sojourn spent clutched in her fist, at her brother's head. He deftly caught it, fought briefly with his kitten for possession of the sacred object, and slowly unravelled it while Myrcella watched him with anger boiling all over again in the pit of her stomach.

'It appears to be a letter from Prince Doran Martell suggesting the beginning of a fashionable correspondence between you and Prince Trystane,' Tommen declared in his king voice, 'what is wrong with that?'

Myrcella looked pointedly at him.

'_What_?' Tommen insisted, with a confusion so profound Myrcella almost believed him.

'Don't be coy,' she snapped, 'I know that you're behind this. You and Uncle Tyrion both, and probably Uncle Kevan too.'

She tried, briefly, to contain her anger; the wild beast that had stalked her body and her mind since the day she had taken a bow up onto the roof of the Great Sept of Baelor and murdered her own mother for love for revenge for love.

When the fight to control her anger failed, as she had known it would, she flung herself out of her chair and began to pace; growing irater by the second as Tommen looked at her, _stared at her_, as though she were out of her mind.

'Sometimes,' Myrcella snarled, 'I _detest_ the _cowardice_ of men. If you want to marry me off, _marry me off and get it over with_, don't try and _accustom me to the idea_, as though I were a child who can't take it. I am a princess born, isn't that what I'm for? To be married off to some useful nobleman of your choosing and transformed into a machine for the production of babies?'

'You don't want to be treated with kindness and consideration, then?' Tommen snapped impatiently, 'do I understand you correctly?'

'May I congratulate Your Grace on the depth of your perceptive powers.'

'It's not normal to want to be treated badly. Uncle Tyrion says –'

'I DON'T CARE WHAT UNCLE TYRION SAYS!'

Tommen fell silent immediately.

"Uncle Tyrion says this, Uncle Tyrion says that,' it's all you ever talk about!' Myrcella shouted, though it was not ladylike to raise her voice, 'you speak about him as though he shits marble!'

'Myrcella!' Tommen squealed, 'ladies shouldn't say the 's' word!'

'Lady Arya uses it all the time!' Myrcella protested.

'Lady Arya runs a quarter of my kingdom for me!' Tommen exclaimed, 'in return, I grant her certain liberties.'

Myrcella paused, considered, and decided that her original point was the most worth returning to.

'And when you come into your maturity, and you need to run your kingdom alone, what will you do? If Uncle Tyrion gets hit by a carriage tomorrow, what will you do? Convene with his spirit and ask it for help? Pray to his head? Hang his embalmed body on your bedroom wall?'

'Myrcella, stop it!'

'The Tommen I know would never have cavorted about with whores _at all_, never mind that you're engaged to Lady Margaery, and –'

'And the Myrcella I know would not spend her life acting like some bitter old hag who thinks she deserves to be punished! Since Mother's death, you've been nothing but angry, angry, angry: all you ever do is shout and complain!'

'I HAVE PLENTY TO SHOUT AND COMPLAIN ABOUT!'

Her voice cracked. Tommen, now vigorously stroking his kitten, stared at her in astonishment; concern and fear in his eyes.

'Like…like what?' Tommen asked.

Myrcella thought about the blood in her veins. The dirty blood; the blood that made her bad. She thought about people with unpolluted minds, like Tommen: people who were happy. She thought about her mother, mad, and the things that she had almost said, that day in the square before the sept. She thought about how _she_ knew and Uncle Tyrion knew and Uncle Jaime knew and Lady Arya knew and Tommen didn't know, and how she had to protect him; even if it meant going mad herself from guilt and disgust and loneliness.

'Nothing,' Myrcella said, and sat down to drain her third glass of wine.

* * *

Chapter notes

Reviews are inspirational!


	8. Chapter 8

An Introduction by Raven

To the Princess Myrcella Baratheon

Let me make it clear, my lady, that I have no desire whatever to enter into this correspondence, and that I am being forced to do so by my father, Prince Doran. My disdain for your royal mother's family is such that a marriage between us can only be viewed by myself as a reprehensible, but necessary needs to an end; an end which I do not desire to begin with. I feel it only right to inform you that when we are wed, I shall endeavour to see you only on formal occasions and when the time comes for our coupling. In the latter case, I would beg you to simply strip and assume the position, and not to feel obliged to make any unnecessary conversation.

I am, my lady, your most obedient servant

Prince Trystane Martell

* * *

My dear Prince Trystane

Fuck off.

With warmest regards

Princess Myrcella

* * *

My dear Princess Myrcella

Your counsel is so dubious that I would have you follow it first and inform me of the results.

Ever yours

Prince Trystane

* * *

Dornish oaf.

* * *

Spoilt brat.

* * *

Are you aware, my prince, that I have become proficient with a bow since my royal mother's death?

* * *

My dear Princess Myrcella

If that statement was meant to disturb me, I assure you it has only had the effect of making me collapse laughing.

* * *

My dear Prince Trystane

I have heard that collapsing laughing with an arrow protruding from your rear-end can be painful.

M

* * *

My dear Princess Myrcella

What if I collapse sideways?

T

* * *

My dear Prince Trystane

Have you no understanding of mathematics?

M

* * *

My dear Princess Myrcella

What's that got to do with anything?

T

* * *

My dear Prince Trystane

If you are hit from behind with a certain velocity, you tend to fall _forwards. Hard._

M

* * *

My dear Princess Myrcella

And what would a princess know of these matters?

T

* * *

My dear Prince Trystane

I am interested in artillery.

M

* * *

My dear Princess Myrcella

I beg to inform you that archery is not artillery.

T

* * *

My dear Prince Trystane

I beg to inform you that catapults are.

M

* * *

My dear Princess Myrcella

Are you threatening me?

T

* * *

My dear Prince Trystane

How very perceptive you are.

M

* * *

My dear Princess Myrcella

I shall show this letter to my lord father tonight.

T

* * *

My dear Prince Trystane

I beg you not to wait so long as that.

M


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter notes

Prince Doran and Prince Trystane are different people. Not even sorry.

* * *

'Is she really that pretty?' Trystane droned; cocking an eyebrow at the miniature portrait with which his father had just disturbed his reading.

Prince Doran's dark eyes flashed in that grave, disparaging way that Trystane had detested for as long as he could remember; his father's brittle fingers gripping feebly at the arms of his wheelchair.

'Her prettiness, or lack thereof, does not interest me,' Prince Doran sternly replied; his words seeming strangely bitter; 'she is only two years your junior, so there will be no need to wait.'

'I intend to wait forever, Father, so perhaps we'd better call the whole thing off,' Trystane declared; going back to his book.

Prince Doran seized the tome from Trystane's hands, placed it in his own lap, and firmly replaced it with the silly, simpering portrait.

Trystane tossed the portrait onto the table. The glass shattered.

'King Tommen sends you this,' Prince Doran proclaimed; ignoring him; 'and I, your father, _bring you this_, as a token of my _command_ that you take the Lannister girl to be your bride and do your duty by her.'

'I will not,' Trystane responded, folding his arms.

'You will not leave this room until you do,' Prince Doran told him.

Trystane felt himself growing pale with anger. Why did his father always insist on treating him like a _child?_

'Mother promised me that I could be a maester.'

Trystane watched his father's face darken, as it always did whenever he mentioned his mother; as far away from here as was possible being the only way she could be happy.

'Your mother had no right to make such a promise,' Prince Doran growled; anger turning his voice red; 'and our House can ill support a repetition of your Uncle Oberyn's conduct in that regard –'

'I am not my Uncle Oberyn,' Trystane glowered.

His father glared at him.

'Then cease acting like a petulant child and prove it.'

'I will not.'

'In that case, you will desist from thinking you have any choice in the matter. I am your _father_; your choice of bride rests with me, and my choice has fallen on Princess Myrcella.'

'I don't love her.'

Trystane was unable to prevent himself from flinging up his hands in fright as Prince Doran's fist swung out of nowhere and hit him viciously across the face with a strength that no man with gout ought to possess.

'Stupid boy,' Father spat at him; the bitterness in his voice like poison; 'do you imagine that I _love_ your mother? Do you imagine that I ever _did_?'

Trystane felt tears welling up in his eyes as the pain lashed out across his cheek.

'You hate her and she hates you,' he hissed; biting on his teeth; hoping his defiance would mask his tears; and hating him, hating him, _hating_ him.

Prince Doran nodded; the fingers of his hand crooking like claws on the arm of his chair.

'You are quite right,' he affirmed, 'and yet _despite_ my hatred and sense of justice, I was able to summon sufficient energy to produce both you and your siblings.'

'Hm,' Trystane mocked, 'I wonder who you thought about when you did so.'

Prince Doran's hand swung for Trystane's face again; then dropped disdainfully as the latter moved both his arms to shield himself; flinching away from his father, and covering his face in fear.

Trystane waited for the blow to fall.

When nothing happened, he slowly lowered his hands, and found Prince Doran looking at him as one would at a rat feasting upon a priceless manuscript.

'Coward,' the prince spat, '_coward_. Of all my brothers, _my_ seed is the one that ends in miserable cowardice. The gods must laugh at me every day of their lives.'

'Have you seen the raven scrolls I showed you?' Trystane abruptly demanded, 'the ones in which my bride-to-be threatens to _shoot me_?'

Prince Doran rolled his eyes at him.

'I have seen a pitiful, albeit successful attempt by an adolescent girl to frighten a _child_,' he declared.

'An adolescent girl born of an _abomination_,' Trystane growled; still fighting the tears would not leave his eyes, 'every breath she takes is an insult to the gods.'

'Your _lack of sense_ is an insult to the gods,' Prince Doran dismissively replied.

'What about Aunt Elia?'

'What about her?'

'Uncle Oberyn clamours daily for revenge and you would have me marry the granddaughter of the man responsible for her _death_?'

'I would have you do your duty, damn you!' Prince Doran roared; quivering with rage.

The sound; the sight; made Trystane's hair stand on end: his father, sitting there…being…doing…

He looked at the dark eyes that were his, and the curls that were his also. Then he looked inside himself, and inside, he saw nothing.

He left his father there. He walked into the gardens, and saw the sea. And as the expanse of water grew to prison bars, and the scent of freedom faded, he felt a sting in his hand.

A shard of glass from Myrcella's portrait had cut his hand. His blood dripped onto the cobblestones.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter notes

I do not write fluff well. Regrettably in this chapter, it was necessary.

* * *

307AL

Jaime fucking _hated _the North. The North, the cold, all of it. It made his bones ache; it made _his stump_ ache; and his bones aching and his stump aching turned him from a _very _good-looking man in the prime of his life to a bad-tempered _old_ one that Jaime himself would not bother talking to if he had the choice.

But Stark had been asking to go to the bloody North ever since their marriage (well…when he said 'asking'), and every year, Jaime had been more than happy to throw his lot in with the maesters: _my lady is too weak for a journey after the circumstances of my little lady's birth; my lady should not travel until the child can walk; my lady should not travel until the child can talk_; blah blah blah.

But then a year had passed since he had married Stark, then two, then three; and the effects of living in heated rooms, eating more than once a week and paying for her happiness in the coin of something other than misery had added greatly to her beauty; her strength; her stubbornness; her Arya-ness. She ruled the Westerlands with an iron fist that Jaime's lord father would have approved of (and with a flippant knowledge of her own talent of which he would not). She sparred and rode every day. She spent hours playing with Joanna, and reading to Joanna, and talking to Joanna, and chasing after Joanna. She laughed. She hooted. She allowed Jaime to teach her to dance; swearing at him when he mocked her, and treading deliberately on his toes.

She was beautiful. She was fire. She was everything. And by the time she had turned eight-and-ten, the excuses _not_ to go North to see Sansa and their idiot bastard brother Snow on the grounds of Arya's ill health had begun to sound feeble even in Jaime's own ears.

So he had given in.

Well…when he said 'given in'…

'If you hate the North so much, then why did you insist on coming along?' Arya demanded; making a large, sweeping gesture at the surrounding forest in which they were lost, alone.

'I don't know, Stark,' Jaime testily replied; stuffing his freezing hands into his pockets and wondering how long it would take the others to realise that they were gone; 'maybe it was to make sure that you don't let Jo _go for a walk_ again.'

Arya's face turned red.

'You _bastard_ –'

'Oh no, wait,' Jaime continued; delighted by her reaction; 'it was in case you had a fainting fit and needed to be taken home to _rest_.'

'Are you _trying_ to irritate me?'

'Of course I am. It's my mission in life.'

'Well, I refuse to be irritated.'

'Go on. See if I care.'

Arya stubbornly folded her arms in a manner more reminiscent of the child she had been than the woman she had become; her cheeks flushed hot with blood and cold against her alabaster skin; her grey eyes alert and smouldering as she glared at him.

She stayed in that position for a good thirty seconds, looking very disapproving and deeply hilarious. Then she began to bite on her bottom lip to keep herself from laughing; Jaime tried (and failed) to look superior and unaffected –

'What are you staring at, Lannister?' Arya coyly asked.

'I'm staring at you, little wolf,' Jaime replied –

And when he crossed the space between them, and touched her, and kissed her; she moulded into his arms like she belonged there. Arya's long fingers were cold on his cheeks; making his spine tingle as they crept into his hair; and her mouth, searing, imprisoned his bottom lip between both of hers; nipping at it gently, before the small tip of her tongue nudged playfully at his, and he kissed her and held her so close and so hard that she gasped into his mouth, and the cold didn't matter, and their lost-ness didn't matter, and the slow disappearance of the sun didn't matter either. She was here. She was here. She was with him.

Arya looked up at him; her eyes sparkling with mischief.

'Crotchety old man,' she accused.

'Proper little lady,' he accused back.

Jaime's arm, then his hand, folded into both her hands; she rested her head briefly on his shoulder, then brought it up again, and they walked in silence through the wood; as though there were no great hurry.

They had left Winterfell for the Wall two days ago, and in all that time, they had not had one moment alone. There had only been time to listen to Arya's silence; watch the darkness in her looks as she said goodbye to her sister, and then thought about her sister, and then worried about her sister, and didn't stop.

In this place, that silence was deafening; as though all the wood were filling up with her disquiet.

'Stark.'

'What?'

'I can hear you –'

'Breathing?'

'Worrying.'

Jaime felt her grip on his hand tighten.

He looked down at her. She looked young.

'I'm worried about Sansa,' Arya mumbled.

'Yes, I can see that,' Jaime replied; grinning impertinently; 'I just can't say that I understand why.'

Arya looked at him like he was mad.

'I don't like her being at Winterfell alone,' she stubbornly declared, 'not while the bloody Boltons still rule the North.'

'Sansa is more than capable of taking care of herself,' Jaime objected.

'No, she isn't!' Arya insisted; her voice rising with her anger.

Jaime bent over and kissed the top of her head.

'She _did _push Littlefinger out of a hole in the floor, Stark.'

'Guts. And luck.'

'Luck, often enough, will save a man, if his courage holds.'

'Are you calling my sister a man, Lannister?'

'Be serious.'

'_You _be serious.'

Jaime rolled his eyes. Arya rolled hers.

'She's _vulnerable_ at Winterfell,' Arya continued; as though the interlude had not taken place; 'and being alone makes her even more so.'

'What do you want her to do?' Jaime flippantly enquired, 'take a lover? Buy a dog?'

'I want Tyrion to resign and move up here permanently instead of pretending that Uncle Kevan wouldn't do a perfectly good job as Lord Regent _and _as Hand of the King,' Arya declared.

'You do remember what happened the last time Tyrion tried to 'move up here'?' Jaime winced.

'He could take lessons in keeping his mouth shut,' Arya sulked.

'Good luck with that,' Jaime laughed.

'Sansa talked of nothing but Tyrion for the whole time she and I were alone together,' Arya plunged on; her expression softening; 'she looks strong, and indestructible, but she's living on the other side of the country from the man she's married to, and it's making her miserable. She's also worried about the security of her position, and I must say that I am too. She will never be secure as Tyrion's wife until she has a son. How is she meant to do that when she sees her husband once a year?'

Jaime stopped, and looked at her; and he felt his heart ache with affection at the disconnectedness in her eyes; at her talking about sons and inheritances as though they meant nothing to her.

'You don't need to pretend for me, my love,' Jaime said; drawing her gently forwards to stand before him.

'I'm not pretending,' Arya replied; allowing him to; 'I am talking like a citizen of the real world.'

Jaime continued to stare at her as memories that he hadn't shared with her filled his head; memories of his own bloody bannermen and their similar fucking concerns. He wondered what the imbeciles would say were he to tell them that Stark's failure to produce an heir was not her fault, but Jaime's; for it was he who brought her moon tea each time they made love, and he who watched her drink it and pull a face at the taste; her large grey eyes still bright from release.

'I'll need to stop drinking this sooner or later,' his little wolf had said, once, pulling the covers up to her chest as she took the cup from him.

Jaime had watched her silently without replying; observing her tiny, exquisite face; her small, birdlike shoulders; her white, white arms; her long fingers with their bitten-off nails, all of her heat and life and love.

_Over my dead body,_ he thought.

'Yes, but later,' he said out loud.

He had already petitioned King Tommen once to change the law of inheritance. Tommen had refused his request before it had even reached the small council chamber.

_It is too soon, Uncle,_ Tommen had written, _it is far too soon_.

Jaime had had similar thoughts when the maesters had come to him shortly after Jo's third birthday and had tried to tell him that the child was simple because she couldn't talk yet – at least not beyond the occasional exclamation of 'shit.'

Jaime had told the maesters that _they_ were simple, and had tried to think no more of it. The child would talk when she was bloody ready to talk. That didn't mean that he had not had reservations about taking her along on this trip to the North. He feared that a long journey would provide an ideal opportunity for Jo to go missing in another inexplicable puff of smoke. He feared that this time they would _not_ find her, or perhaps, as he suspected deep down, that this time, she would not _wish_ to be found, and then they'd be genuinely fucked.

'Your bannermen want you to divorce me, don't they?' Arya said suddenly; staring at him hard, as though the truth lay in his eyes.

Jaime stared at her standing in front of him; folding her arms; protecting herself; doing what he had sworn she would never have to do again, and found himself stammering like a child.

'How…how do you know?'

Arya smiled ironically in reply.

'I didn't, until now.'

Jaime felt his eyes narrow in anger.

'You know you don't need to _trick _me to get an answer out of me,' he growled, 'you could just _ask_.'

She looked alarmed.

'I've offended you – '

'Yes, my lady, you have offended me.'

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean –'

'I'm trying to think of what ulterior motive you imagine I have in hand in keeping this from you,' Jaime proposed; putting his hands on his hips; 'wait, I know! I give you moon tea to _deliberately _bring on infertility, so that when I want to divorce you in favour of some buxom Westerlander with huge breasts and no brain, I'll have suitable grounds for it! And if you protest that your infertility is _my _fault as opposed to yours, it'll be your word against mine, and who will they believe? Me! Seven hells! What a brilliant scheme! I should ask Lord Varys what he thinks of it!'

'Why _did _you keep it from me?' Arya asked; ignoring him.

Jaime scoffed at her coolness.

'Shall I tell you what happened that day?' he sweepingly proposed.

'Please!' Arya sweepingly agreed.

Jaime stepped back from her and began to pace.

'It was Lord Marbrand who started it. Him and a group of others; all high-ranking; all sworn to Casterly Rock for ten generations; the usual bullshit. They began by talking about their loyalty to me, and to my father: how it was their duty to speak; how it was the duty of every bannermen to play his part in ensuring that the Lion banner was carried into future battles. I told them to shut up and get on with whatever it was they wanted. They talked about Jo, then – how obedient she was, how tranquil (clearly none of them had ever seen her before) – and what a pity it was that such a talented child could never rule Casterly Rock. I agreed with them, and told them of my intention to petition the King. They asked me what I intended to do if the King refused, and when I didn't reply, they began shuffling feet and making respectful noises. Then Lord Marbrand himself told me that the King would almost certainly refuse, and that it was time to 'face the evil'.'

"Face the evil'?' Arya repeated; her brow wrinkling.

'Yes, at least he had the decency to call it evil,' Jaime plunged on, 'then he said I should divorce you in the name of keeping the Lannister line alive, and handed over a list of suitable candidates that he had 'taken the liberty of drawing up."

Arya was chalk-white and trembling with rage.

'I don't understand,' she stuttered, 'he is your friend's father; you would think that he – that – what did you do?'

'I punched him in the face –'

'Jaime!'

'– kicked him when he fell to the floor, and –'

'– what?'

'– tried to strangle him.'

'_Jaime!_'

Arya was doing an excellent job of looking appalled and disapproving; her hands on her hips; her eyes wide. Jaime ran his hand through his hair, and continued to pace agitatedly; the mere memory of it making his blood boil.

'In the end, it took three men to pull me off him, the proud old bastard. Maester tells me he'll be – '

Arya's hands seizing his shoulders made his words fall away, and her lips on his, his breath. She kissed him softly and deeply; her arms winding around his waist to pull him hard against her, and when his mouth opened beneath hers, he could feel the shape of her smile.

'Can I take it you approve, Stark?' Jaime smiled against her lips.

'I love you,' Arya murmured; her hands framing his face.

Jaime's remaining hand slowly caressed her cheek, then disappeared into the secret warmth of her hair as he whispered to her.

'I love you more.'


	11. Chapter 11

Joanna, on Nymeria's back, dug her fingers deeper into the thick fur, and shifted her weight slightly as the direwolfie padded faster and faster through the gate in the Wall; the Wall which was a huge, white, blue, never-ending coldness that went up and up and up, until it melted into the white sky, and became like the clouds. Sometimes people stared at her for riding a wolfie, but Mother and Father would not let her have a horsey, or even a pony – even though she was _three years old_ – so if she wanted to ride a wolfie, then a wolfie she would ride.

It was so cold in the tunnel that Joanna felt like she was like turning blue. Ahead of her, Mother and Father, on horseys, were _arguing_ about turning blue; Father so big he seemed to take up the whole world; Mother small and bony, like the wildling women Jo had seen in story books.

'I'm _cold_, Stark,' Father was complaining.

'You're wearing too many layers!' Mother was scolding, 'if you wear too many layers, you sweat; if you sweat, you get colder; I've tried explaining to you, Lannister, but _no_, the Southerner knows best!'

Father turned in his saddle to wink at Jo; the blueness making his yellow hair look silver.

'Jo, do _you_ remember her explaining this?'

Jo smiled at him, and tried to wink back. She only succeeded in closing both her eyes.

Mother turned around to observe her answer, and Jo rapidly changed her smile into a noncommittal shrug.

'See?' Mother said; poking Father in the ribs; 'even the three-year-old agrees with me!'

'The three-year-old only seems to be _shrugging_, Stark,' Father protested; and on and on it went, the fighting, the griping, the shout-shouts and the brawling; the way it had been when they went missing yesterday; the way it had been when they came back yesterday; the way it had always been.

Jo didn't mind so much; at least not today. Because for many, many nights now, Mother had had bad dreams, about ghosts with blue eyes refusing to look at her, turning away; about a man that wasn't a ghost, with grey eyes, refusing to look at her, turning away; and every night, Father had had to wake her up, and tell her that she was alive, and that he loved her.

Fighting was just another way for Mother to say it back.

* * *

Arya's heart was beating so fast it grew numb in her chest. Around her was the forecourt of Castle Black, and brothers in black staring, and Jaime in black, scowling, and Jo in red, staring.

She waited. Jon didn't come.

Arya felt a tide rise within her and smash the letters her brother had written her to pieces – _I cannot wait to see you, little sister; I wonder if you will have changed so much that I won't recognise you; you _did _look like a scrawny little crow last time we met; no, I _don't _think you should worry so much about Joanna not talking – I think I didn't talk for a long time either._

And the tide was black, and made of other words made entirely from her own dreams: _traitor, whore, traitor, whore, the North remembers, the North remembers, the North exiles, the North casts out, the North never forgets._

She waited. Jon didn't come.

_He's probably busy, maybe he doesn't know we're here, maybe he doesn't – _

Jaime had dismounted, and was biting the heads off several brothers gaping at both him and his hand:

'Tell the Lord Commander to get his stiff Stark arse out here before I open him from balls to brains!'

As they scurried, Jaime turned back to her and helped her dismount. It was something that she and Jaime liked to do, even though she didn't need it. It was the reassurance of a touch, of warmth, of his arms holding her hard because his hands couldn't. And it was the reassurance of the moment her feet touched the ground, and she could look up at him and drown; grey meeting green, fire meeting fire, love.

Jaime placed her on the ground with more gentleness than he had ever shown; his arms still around her waist. His eyes were very soft – the opposite of what they had been moments ago.

'Stark,' Jaime said; kissing her forehead; 'he'll be here. He will.'

She stared up at him, wanting to believe him; but the abyss was still too near, beneath her feet, with only her heels on the ground.

'Come on, Stark,' Jaime insisted, _'breathe_.'

Arya stared at him, and tried, and jumped as she felt a tiny hand slip into hers. She looked down, and smiled wanly at Jo, who smiled up at her with big grey eyes; strands of golden hair peeping out from beneath her hood. Jo held Arya's hand with one of her hands, and took to stroking her hand with the other, as one might stroke a kitten.

Arya felt a kind of calm sweep over her with every touch of her daughter's hand; every stroke like a salve for the mind; like sand over a fire.

'Thank you, Jo,' she said.

Jo smiled.

Jaime's head snapped suddenly in the direction of a point just over Arya's shoulder. Arya turned, and felt Jo's hand slip out of hers.

A figure in black was moving rapidly down a staircase made of stone, and tearing off its hood as it went. Arya saw hair the colour of her hair bared suddenly to the cold, and eyes the colour of her eyes turning dark with emotion –

_Oh gods, it's him, it's Jon, he's here – _

His face was so different, and so lined, scarred as though it had been through a war: it was her father's face, her father's eyes; she saw him see her, she saw him smile; it was just as she remembered, it was the same –

She felt emotion well up inside her; she was sure she was going to burst into tears; she didn't care if she burst into tears; because she knew that he would take her in his arms and muss her hair and call her 'little sister', and the years would fall away, and everything would be alright again.

Her brother marched past her without looking at her, and punched Jaime squarely in the face.


	12. Chapter 12

The stars still shone outside, but the events of yesterday morning still thudded incessantly through Jon's brain. Perhaps he _had _behaved badly, but while he certainly felt a pinprick of guilt for upsetting his little sister, what he did _not _feel a pinprick of guilt about was breaking the Kingslayer's nose.

He had felt his fist and Jaime Lannister's face connect with a satisfying crunch. He had felt his stomach flip as the old man, after dropping like a stone, had seized hold of Jon's ankle, pulled hard, and brought him crashing down with him, to raucous laughter. Jon had gone for the Kingslayer's throat; the Kingslayer had gone for Jon's; and then suddenly, out of nowhere, innumerable blows had begun to rain down on his back; on his limbs; on his head; on any part of him that remained immobile for more than half a second.

When the disembodied whipping eventually turned out to be Arya beating the shit out of both him and Lannister with a pair of practice swords, Jon's face had burned with shame, and by the time his little sister had finished, both men were lying insensible on the ground and had to be helped to their feet by brothers jostling for the honour of assisting them.

'You _bastards_,' Jon muttered, as he was half-carried off someplace to be stitched up, 'if I survive this day, I will punish you all.'

'Now that's no way for a Lord Commander to talk!' he had heard Sam exclaim, 'you should be behaving with humility!'

_Humility. Right. My sister has married herself to the worst Lannister of them all, and I must somehow find the time to think of humility._

'I cannot _believe_ that you have done this,' Arya said, again and again as she took needle and thread to the Kingslayer's face, and Sam did the same for Jon, 'I cannot _believe _that you have done this,' she repeated; and Jon had glared at Jaime Lannister, and Jaime Lannister had grinned impudently back at him, and somehow, with that gesture, the turmoil had begun all over again; with him and Lannister talking, and Arya and Sam begging them not to.

'After all the horror that you and your House have inflicted on ours,' Jon had spat at one point, 'anybody would think that the girl whose brother you crippled would be a bit too close for common decency, but no! Instead you stick your Lannister cock in my sister, get her with child and –'

'_Jon_!' Arya had exclaimed.

'Technically, she's _my _sister too,' Lannister had japed in response, '_technically_.'

'Jaime, _shut up_!'

But Jon had flown from his seat once again; Arya had _punched_ him this time and shouted at him to calm down while Sam fled the room in terror; and after she had clouted her Lannister husband on the head, she had said, 'I wonder if I might have a moment alone with my _half_-brother.'

And Jon had hated her tone of voice, then. The way she talked had changed. The way she asked questions.

She didn't sound like herself anymore. She sounded like _them_.

_I have lost even her_, he had thought as Lannister had limped out of the room with the tiny girl they called Jo, _they have taken my brothers, my father, my home. They have taken both my sisters. But her most of all. With her, they have taken everything._

Arya was pacing up and down before him; her dark hair pulled back into a severe braid; her slender form clothed in immaculate black riding leathers that fastened all the way up to her chin, and did not leave an inch of flesh exposed. She was pristine; like something he would pollute if he embraced her, with his dirt and sweat and numb, numb cold. She was someone he didn't know anymore.

She glared at him as though she had guessed his thoughts.

'What?' Arya demanded, 'did you think I'd still be a messy little girl who agrees with everything you say and do?'

Jon thought that was rather unfair.

'You never agreed with _anything_ I said or did!' he protested.

'Like punching Jaime?' she plunged on; ignoring him; 'before you so much as _looked _at me; what do you expect me to do; congratulate you?'

'He was kissing you,' Jon muttered, sulkily folding his arms while Arya stared at him as though she thought him mad.

'He's my _husband_!' Arya exclaimed, 'he's _allowed_ to kiss me!'

'In public? In front of everyone?' Jon complained, 'I think that's in rather bad taste.'

He watched Arya try to be rational; watched the present leave her, and its reason, the past, rise within her and hurt her, overcome her, gut her; and for a moment, he was glad as her voice trembled, and the horror he knew was inside her turned her voice grey.

'I know…' Arya ventured softly, 'I know that…losing Father, and Robb, and…and Bran and Rickon, and…I know that it's been hard…'

And Jon found himself snarling at her; at the lion pretending to be a wolf.

'_You do not know_,' he growled; every inch of loneliness and anger and helplessness that he had ever felt burning his skin from the inside, out, '_no one knows_.'

Arya's eyes darkened in anger, and for a moment, Jon thought she was going to stab him. But she hid her hurt prodigiously. Tywin Lannister had taught her well.

'They were my family too,' Arya softly said.

'You've got an interesting way of showing it,' Jon replied.

Arya hung her head and breathed. He could tell that her self-control was leaving her. She raised her hands – black, gloved hands – and smoothed them over her forehead, still breathing.

She looked at him.

'In your letters. When you said you couldn't wait to see me. Were you lying?'

And for a while, she looked at him, and for a while, he looked at her.

When he hadn't replied, she had left him. He hadn't seen her since. He didn't even know if she was still in the castle.

The stars no longer shone outside. The dawn was dim and grey. Jon got out of bed and went to the practice yard. He had a sudden urge to hit something.


	13. Chapter 13

_Meanwhile in King's Landing_, or '_Something to publish while I work out what to do on the Wall._'

* * *

Olenna Tyrell, seated in the small council chamber and awaiting the arrival of her figs, was enjoying herself tremendously.

She was there, at King Tommen's somewhat baffling behest _('as the only female senior courtier soon to be connected by marriage…my great respect for your wisdom…my sister has no woman's guidance'_) to attend to the suit of one of Prince Doran's many thousands of cousins: a bizarrely-named mediocrity called Lord Ferrara. He had been sent to King's Landing for the expressed purpose of making himself known to the Princess Myrcella and of answering any questions that she might have concerning her husband-to-be.

Lady Olenna found the idea rather misplaced. It was the sort of thing that happened in those rare cases when a girl was being courted by twenty-five different men, and her father either loved her too much or feared her too much to make a decision for her. So each suitor would send a high-ranking representative (usually an ambassador, in the case of foreign potentates); interviews would be conducted; and the young lady would ultimately accept the man who had sent the best liar.

_But the Princess has turned herself into such a vicious little bitch in recent years that she has had no suitors at all, and this Dornish match has already been agreed upon, and if Prince Doran were so eager to assure the wretched girl of his son's affection, why not send the boy himself, to 'work his charms' on her?_

_Probably because the boy would put on a display similar to this one_, Olenna thought; watching King Tommen, and the Lords Tyrion and Kevan cringe in their seats at the sight of Princess Myrcella glaring mutinously at the preening prancing Lord Ferrara, who was waving his hands flamboyantly to and fro in blissful ignorance of the Princess' ill-humour.

Olenna could only conclude that the girl had been as badly brought up as the average Dornish prince was. Had her mother never explained it to her? Did she imagine that she was the only woman in history to be married off against her will?

_She probably does_, Olenna thought,_ because nobody has ever told her otherwise. You never see the girl without her nose in a book. Her world view must be formed on nonsense._

It never occurred to Olenna that Princess Myrcella's books might have been concerned with something other than this extraordinary idea that one should marry the person one was in love with: she did not understand why they should be. When she looked at the girl, she saw a vision of her mother – though her mannerisms were more Lord Jaime, Olenna thought – and Cersei Lannister had never been one to believe that books were for anything other than the wasting of time and the filling of heads with nonsense. Had the Queen Regent believed otherwise, she might still be alive.

'Your figs, my lady!' a nervous servant declared; pushing them determinedly under her nose.

Olenna gave him an icy look, and popped the first piece of fruit into her mouth as Lord Ferrara began to regale them with stories of Prince Trystane's proficiency in hunting.

'My lord Prince Trystane is the finest hunter in all of Dorne!' Lord Ferrara declaimed, 'last year he killed over two thousand woodcock with the gallant stroke of his spear!'

'Don't you mean his longbow?' Princess Myrcella enquired.

'My princess?' Lord Ferrara politely enquired.

'His _longbow_,' Princess Myrcella said; sounding out every syllable as one might to a simpleton; 'the spear is a bad option when hunting birds. Heavy. Difficult to throw very far. Can't go _far enough into the air to catch a bloody bird_ – or was killing woodcock with the gallant stroke of his spear meant to be a euphemism for something?'

Lord Kevan choked on his wine. Olenna smiled wryly and ate another fig. Ferrara, on the other hand, burst into a fit of laughter: the kind that one directed at a funny child who had just declared that the moon was made of green cheese.

He did not see her eyes that were like green blades.

'Certainly, the prince is acquainted with all the appropriate techniques when it comes to lovemaking,' Ferrara declared; wiping his eyes; 'he is the pride of our nation's manhood –'

'Is he a whore?' Princess Myrcella asked.

The Dornishman's brow wrinkled in confusion; as though unsure that he had heard correctly.

'No, my princess,' Ferrara replied; sweeping his hand upwards in a grand gesture; 'Prince Trystane has exceedingly refined tastes. He beds highborn virgins only.'

Princess Myrcella sighed. Her knuckles were turning white on the arms of her chair.

'I didn't ask if he _had _a whore, I asked if he _was_ a –'

Lord Kevan swept to the rescue like an eagle chasing a mouse.

'I believe the princess is merely attempting to establish the prince's experience in such matters,' Kevan loudly declared.

'Yes, thank you, Uncle,' Princess Myrcella replied, in a sweet, empty-headed voice that did not fool Olenna for a second, 'forgive me, my lord,' she said to Ferrara, 'I know so little of the world – its subtleties are often lost on me.'

Ferrara bowed deeply.

'That is no cause for concern, my princess,' he ostentatiously proclaimed, 'I assure you that the prince is the most generous lover that could be –'

'Generous?' Princess Myrcella squeaked; fluttering her eyebrows in wide-eyed confusion, 'do you refer to his physical or spiritual qualities?'

'Ser Meryn!' King Tommen barked, in a voice like iron (poor boy), 'my royal sister is over-tired. See her to her chambers.'

'Touch me and I'll break your wrist!' Princess Myrcella snapped as the burly Kingsguard attempted to help her out of her chair, and she swept from the room in a flurry of black silk with Trant marching grudgingly after her.

Olenna did not care for Meryn Trant. He had eyes like stone (and, she suspected, a brain like stone as well).

'My deepest apologies, Lord Ferrara,' King Tommen intoned; 'our royal mother's death has driven all obedience from her.'

Lord Ferrara made another deep bow.

'Love will make her so when she makes the acquaintance of my prince,' he said, 'he is one who inspires obedience, in both women and in men.'

King Tommen stroked the kitten in his lap. Lord Tyrion bit his lip. Lord Kevan simply sat there, looking out of humour. And Ferrara took the hint, scampering out of the room and at once beginning to jabber at his personal guard in what Olenna assumed was Norvosi.

'Well, that was a disaster,' King Tommen unhelpfully volunteered.

'I prefer the word 'catastrophe',' Lord Tyrion replied with equal unhelpfulness; 'or 'calamity'. 'Calamity' has a poetic ring to it. Like 'debacle' and 'tragedy' and 'disaster' and 'devastation' –'

'Has any of you ever been to a wedding that is vehemently opposed by both parties?' Olenna asked; cutting across them; 'I have. The bride escaped to Braavos in a boat, assisted by the groom's friends.'

King Tommen's face turned red.

'Lady Olenna, I shall exile you if you repeat such a tale to Myrcella,' he said severely.

'Do calm down, my darling boy,' Olenna replied, 'rage doesn't suit you.'

'Impertinence suits you amply, my lady, but I would be most grateful if you would exercise it on someone other than my person,' King Tommen snapped.

'May I exercise it on the princess if it gets her to the sept on the appointed day?' Olenna enquired.

Tommen gave her an arching look no doubt designed to impress upon her some delusion about his being the master and her being the servant, before nodding gravely.

As the meeting ended, Olenna summoned Left and Right, and began to make her way back to those confounded gardens that were the bane of her day-to-day existence.

As she silently contemplated the torches in their sconces (and wondered if anybody would notice if she happened to throw one into a rosebush), she wondered if Myrcella would prefer Highgarden to Dorne.


	14. Chapter 14

Arya was fast asleep when she felt Jaime's nose brush softly against her skin. It was freezing cold.

'I'm taking Jo for a walk,' he murmured; kissing her cheek.

'Don't forget…warm clothes…' Arya mumbled, and pulled the wolf skin pelt over her head.

* * *

Jaime mounted up beside Jon Snow, and gave him a pointed look.

'She fell for it.'

Snow looked him up and down with all the self-righteous condemnation that Jaime had hated in his father.

'We should find her before Arya wakes up,' the boy said in his bumpkin-ish Northern drawl, 'a child that age couldn't have gone far.'

Jaime snorted under his breath that Snow might be surprised.

They set off into the pre-dawn mist with the silence straining between them like the strings of a un-tuned fiddle; in the direction of a heart tree beyond the Wall where (Snow claimed), his own direwolf seemed to be sitting in the snow with Nymeria; growling at her and trying to bite her tail off.

'The _wolves_ are there?' Jaime had snapped in response; trying to hide his despair when an altercation between him (looking for Jo) and Snow (on the way to the practice yard) had resulted in their mutual discovery of the open tunnel gate; 'what fucking use is that to me? Is _my_ _child _there?'

'_How should I know_?' Snow had snapped back, in a sulky tone of voice that had reminded Jaime far too much of Arya for comfort, 'if she loves Nymeria as much as you say you does, it's stupid to think she'll be anywhere else.'

'And what if she _is _somewhere else, _Snow_?'

When Snow had not replied, his silence had disturbed Jaime too much to think up a reply.

He thought ahead. To an hour from now. To two. To her face – Arya's face – if they didn't find her alive. Her silences. Her screams. Her silences that were worse.

Jaime thought ahead. To an hour from now. To two. To himself. To finding his daughter dead in the snow. With frost in her hair. With her throat ripped out. With half a body.

He bit his tongue to stop any expression of fear horror fear _gods no _from leaving his lips.

_Make it me_, he whispered, to the old gods his wife prayed to, when it suited her, _if someone has to die, make me die instead. Please. Please. Please._

In the mist they met with rangers returning. Snow ordered them to turn around and scour the area around them.

'What if we find nothing, Lord Snow?' one of them asked.

'Then return to Castle Black,' Snow gravely replied, 'and – '

'– and say _nothing_ of this to the Lady Lannister,' Jaime had added, 'unless you want your balls roasted on a spit.'

Snow had glared at him in a way that was clearly meant to be intimidating, but that looked hilarious.

'This isn't Casterly Rock, Lannister,' Snow had snapped; glowering at Jaime and at the (now snickering) rangers, 'you don't threaten my men or presume to give them orders.'

'Forgive me, Lord Commander,' Jaime had replied; bowing sweepingly in his saddle; 'I have a terrible habit of correcting mistakes, regardless of context, that Arya has often had to speak to me about.'

Snow gave him a filthy look and spurred his horse away into a gallop. Jaime followed; his lips curling into a smile. A good fight with his good-brother (gods help him) might very well help to keep images of Jo's corpse out of his head.

'Don't the noble men of the Night's Watch object to being put on babysitting duty?' Jaime asked, in a ringing voice that made Snow wince.

'They aren't used to objecting,' the Lord Commander coldly replied, 'gets them whipped.'

'Hm,' Jaime acknowledged, 'if only you'd done the same to whoever left the gate open.'

Snow turned his head to look at him, with murder in his burning grey eyes.

'_Nobody_ left the fucking gate open!'

'Then how did she get out?'

'I don't _know_!'

'You don't know. My daughter is out there somewhere, alone in the frozen fucking wastes, and you don't fucking _know_?'

'She is also my niece.'

Jaime suddenly felt like punching the little pup there and then.

'She's your _niece_?' Jaime repeated, 'you could have fucking fooled me! Yesterday, you didn't even look at her. Today, you mention her dying like she's some piece of meat you don't care about!'

'I _do _care about her,' Snow snorted; as though he didn't give a fuck whether Jaime believed him or not; 'she's a guileless, innocent child, and I don't blame her at all for you.'

* * *

Joanna put her palm to the bark of the heart tree.

It was like all the things that she had ever seen in her dreams, only better. Clouds shaped like horseys and wolfies flew across the sky. They chased each other, and played a game. A big lion appeared in the colours of the clouds and chased them all away; its eyes bright and green, like Father's. It loped to where Joanna stood, and handed her a rose made of starlight.

'For you, little wolf,' the lion said, and when Joanna touched it, the world went dark.

She was scaredsy for a little while, because she couldn't see. But she was still holding the rose; it clinked like something broken in her palm, and nearby she could feel the wolfies there. She would always be safe if they were there.

Joanna's eyes became used to the dark. Things started to crawl out of it. It became very, very cold. And suddenly she was rising, higher and higher, above the crawling things; above the world: she could see all of it; all of the world on one side of her, and all of the world on the other side of her; beneath her like a giant map. It was night time, so the world had candles burning, and fires, and torches lighting up great castles shaped like big circles and rectangles and innumerable golden and silver lines all mashing together and lining together like the important people did each day when they came to ask Mother for things. She saw more and more patterns in the light – she could hear them too, like a sweet kind of music that she could fall asleep to. They drew themselves up and danced for her; danced to the music of their own light.

Then the lights started to go out.

They went slowly at first. Candles went out one by one. Then lamps. Then there was a rush; then it suddenly got colder; then the dark was sweeping across the light like the waves that crashed under Castlelly Rock and the lights were dying in that rush; in that wave. Smoke wasn't erupting out of the dark like it usually did when the lights went out; ice was coming to life instead: ice candles, ice lamps, ice castles springing up beneath the blanket of the dark.

And then, ice people.

She saw them swarm across the world. Dark and grey and cold; eyes glowing blue like ice with fire inside it. She saw the blood of living people flowing into rivers and turning them red; red lakes running through landscapes of ice; like ice with fire oozing out of it. She saw Father on the plains of Castlelly Rock with his armies; fighting the ice people; fighting with a hundred bright knives sticking into him.

Jo began to cry.

She saw her father fall. She heard her mother screaming as she reached his side, her armour staining with his blood. There was an axe in her back. Blood was dripping out of her mouth.

Jo began to scream. Her screams mingled with her mother's.

'_No, you don't die! Don't die!_'

A red tide swept against the beach by Castlelly Rock, turning the sand red. When the sea turned to ice, that was red too. Above her the stars were bleeding – 'No, no no no,' Jo started to moan; trying to step away from the tree; to step out of it, 'no, no no no!'

She felt something moving behind her. She heard the wolfies growling; growling as it got closer and closer and colder and colder.

There was ice on the tips of her fingers. She couldn't move at all. But even though she couldn't move, she knew.

She could see them. She could feel them.

_They're coming._


	15. Chapter 15

_No. They don't exist. They're not real. They're not real. They're not real. THEY'RE NOT REAL._

But his daughter was before the heart tree, facing the monster, looking up into its eyes; her eyes turning white – like Arya's did each time she warged – then back to grey – then white again, flickering like a candle; flickering _oh gods, my child, my Jo, Joanna, _and he could feel her fear on the inside of himself; feel what she felt: an emptiness, an absolute desolation radiating from the evil facing her from the thing that _thing._

He ran for her and it but it didn't move he ran and ran and tripped in the snow got up and ran it didn't move it didn't move while she stared at it she stared and stared with tears pouring down her face eyes flickering flickering flickering and it couldn't move it didn't it couldn't move.

It was only when Snow tore past him on horseback that he realised that somehow, she was stopping it; she was stopping it from moving before it killed her. He thought about his child inside the mind of such a thing as he saw; the deadened skin, the glowing blue eyes; the _cold_; the thought terrified him; horrified him; enraged him; he drew his sword he stalked forwards as Snow dealt it a terrific blow in the back; it reached out one-handed and yanked him from his horse as though he were a child.

Snow rolled to his feet like a cat like his sister.

Jaime reached Joanna and yanked her roughly around; seizing her chin and jerking her head upwards. She was sobbing as though she had a broken heart – sobbing and sobbing and sobbing – but her eyes were clear grey. Eyes like a storm like her mother's.

'Climb a tree,' he ordered; she dashed off; he went to help Snow; Snow who was fighting like a wild thing possessed; cutting and slashing at the walker in a frenzy; and Jaime thought as he joined him; as Snow's face lined itself in an agony of concentration with the grey eyes blazing with every blow:

_He's good. But he wastes energy in the wrong places._

The thing had two blades. They whirled and sliced and cut and froze and tore the air asunder. Jaime danced wildly with Snow they both danced with the thing with the wielder of the blades; the bastard boy and the water dancer; the Stark and the Lannister; the enemies. He tried to hack its head off it was like trying to hack through steel; the two of them Jaime and Snow impaled and thrust and gouged and wounded gave wounds that were not wounds it didn't die didn't die wouldn't die.

It fought with a horrible kind of inevitability; as though knowing that it would win. It only fought quickly because _they_ fought quickly – if left to kill alone it would kill slowly; fight slowly; because it would always win. Snow fought as though he did not know this, even though he must have.

_Brave, idiot boy._

A burst of white fur knocked Jaime off his feet a burst of familiar yellow eyes that roared across his vision it was the wolves the wolves attacked they took it down they tried to tear its throat out Jaime stood Snow stood the walker threw the wolves it threw them off like rags like children Nymeria's body slammed hard into the trunk; he heard Jo scream.

She hopped down from her tree; sprawling in the snow; her little limbs too tiny to move in it; her hood off her hair golden she ran to the wolf; she cried; stroking Nymeria's fur and sobbing.

When Joanna's hands touched Nymeria's fur, the walker turned; it turned in almost-recognition; it flung itself towards her fast like an eagle how the fuck could it be so fast faster than the sun than death Jaime threw a knife tore after it Jon tore after it, tore it around, Jaime ran; it flung Jon to the ground like a sack of potatoes; sword in hand, sword throat throat –

The force of the blow against the walker's sword jarred Jaime's hand the steel reverberating from his sword to the walker's the thing's and its blade glanced off his with a clanging sound like the bells of a sept and buried itself in Jon's leg.

Jon bellowed in pain Jaime fought the walker fought it danced it was strong stronger than giants; from the corners of his vision Jaime saw Jon bleeding and cursing and trying to stand his blood staining the snow red _he swears like she does like her_ from the corners of his vision he saw Joanna with Nymeria, stroking her fur but watching him and Jon; watching crying –

Jaime faced the thing again listened to his daughter's sobs smelt his good brother's blood his curses his unconsciousness Joanna was crying crying crying; and suddenly his vision began to blur his knees to unbend his feet to be wrong it was happening again his sword becoming Westerosi again _concentrate don't let it happen don't let it happen Stark help me help me tell me what to do Stark_ but the water-dancing faded faded faded like droplets cascading between his fingers he backed off some and then more; he swung he fought with old useless parts of him woke up parts of him that had two hands not one he swung the walker swung it fought it knocked it knocked the sword out of his hand –

'NO!' Joanna screamed.

Ghost flew past him again took the walker down again the scream had been Joanna's his child's his child's who couldn't talk she was still screaming it hurt it hurt him he turned to face the thing again Ghost had it Ghost straddled it Joanna's scream became earthquakes tornadoes the sound of the very wind the thing was struggling the thing was screaming an acrid smell was filling the air the walker screamed; screamed into Jo's scream and cracked and dribbled and writhed like nightmare and shattered like glass like glass becoming dust becoming air becoming nothing dying disintegrating dying.

With a final scream, it was gone, and only dust was left. Ghost sniffed at the mess as though disconcerted; Joanna sprinted across the clearing on her tiny legs; leaping into Jaime's arms at the same moment that the white faded from her eyes, and he crushed her to his chest until his arms hurt; shushing her as she cried she cried as though her heart was broken.

_What the – what the fuck – what the fuck just happened – happened – _

'Father not go bye bye,' Joanna whispered; her voice small and high; her tiny fingers digging into his furs, 'Uncle Jon not go bye bye.'

Jaime looked up to where Jon lay. He ran to him with Joanna still weeping into his shoulder; her safe, warm, tiny, alive heat clutched in his arms; heat where around them there was only snow and cold and frost.

Jon was on his back in the ice in a steaming pool of his own blood; his grey eyes hooded; the fingertips of his hand buried inside the wound to stem the bleeding. His breathing was ragged, and perspiration dotted his forehead despite the cold; his eyes on Nymeria, lying where she had fallen; her eyes closed as Ghost licked tenderly at her face.

When Jaime knelt next to him, he smiled ironically.

'You're not bad,' Jon remarked, 'for an old man.'

Jaime beheld the weeping child in his arms, the bleeding man at his feet and the injured wolf at his side, and sighed.

_Arya's going to kill me._


	16. Chapter 16

They had no choice but to leave Nymeria at the heart tree until help could be sent from the Wall. She had broken her leg and could not walk.

'Stay, Ghost,' Jon commanded; wincing at the pain in his leg as the white wolf gave him what could only be described as a dirty look; and when Jaime attempted to stroke Nymeria in comfort (he had grown very fond of her in recent years), he had almost gotten his hand bitten off for his trouble.

'Bad wolfie,' Jo scolded; still gathered up in Jaime's arms and refusing to be put down, 'bad _bad _wolfie.'

As Jo continued to scold Ghost with her newly-acquired powers of speech; as Ghost began to look decidedly sheepish; as Nymeria let out a whine of pain, and Jon an uncomfortable grunt of it while attempting to mount up unaided with his bloody bandaged leg; Jaime thought it again.

_Arya's going to kill me._

'Oh, for fuck's sake, Snow, _will _you stop that?' he snapped, and gave his good-brother an undignified shove in the arse that sent him sprawling into the saddle. Jo he kept nestled in front of him, within the warmth of his furs.

Halfway back to Castle Black, they met Arya. She looked like a wildling princess; wearing nothing but her riding boots and cloak, with her sword belt buckled over her sleeping shift, and she had worked her horse up into such a gallop that she shot past them for a good half mile before she was able to get the bloody animal to stop.

The sight of her mother seemed to make something in Jo crack, and within seconds the child was crying again; wailing in terror as though the walker were still there and flinging herself into Arya's arms so abruptly that she almost fell to the ground between the horses.

'_Mother_,' Jo sobbed; her arms around Arya's neck and her legs around her waist; '_mother mother mother mother_ –'

'I heard you, my darling, I heard you,' Arya shushed; rocking Jo back and forth in her arms; 'it's alright; I heard you, I'm here…'

When she looked at Jaime over Jo's shoulder, her expression was fearsome.

'What the fuck were you two doing?' she demanded.

In his head Jaime could still hear his child screaming; her eyes flashing; the walker collapsing into dust; his child screaming no; dear gods if the gate had not been open –

There was a horrible, angry, pregnant silence. Then Jaime and Jon both started talking at once.

'We don't know how she got out –' Jaime blurted.

'We just found the gate open –' Jon concurred.

'We just didn't want you to worry –' Jaime added.

'We _know _how you worry –' Jon exclaimed.

'We thought it'd be a quick, harmless little ride to the heart tree and back –'

'A _very_ harmless, perfectly safe –'

'_Perfectly_ safe –'

'– ride; we didn't know of the danger –'

'Actually, there _was _no danger –'

'Just a mild danger that I think we handled rather well –'

'Even if your brother's technique just smacks of sexual frustration –'

'Fuck you, old man!' Jon grunted, turning a bright shade of red.

'When was the last time you fucked someone, incidentally?' Jaime enquired.

'At least it doesn't take me an hour to get it up!' Jon mocked.

'WHAT'S HAPPENED TO MY CHILD?' Arya bellowed, 'all I heard was a scream, and…my wolf. WHERE'S MY WOLF?'

'Shit,' Jo wept, 'shit shit shit.'

* * *

'You don't _ever _get to decide what I do or don't need to know!' Arya shouted, 'I'm not a –'

'You kept it from me the last time it happened!' Jaime quietly accused.

'Is that meant to be_ funny_?' Arya screeched.

'_Will _you keep your bloody voice down?' Jaime snapped; cocking his head in the direction of Joanna's narrow cot, 'she needs to sleep.'

'She needs to _sleep_?' Arya scorned, 'she's been pumped so full of essence of nightshade she probably won't wake up for days!'

'So you can shout as much as you want?'

'_Yes_!'

'_Stark_!'

Arya's hands were on her hips; her eyes glimmering like grey sunlight; light passing from them to the glint of her swordbelt; cold and hard against the pristine white heat of her shift.

'You could have taken me _with_ you!' she sulked.

'I could have WHAT?' Jaime repeated in disbelieving anger.

'You needed another sword,' Arya snapped, '_I was right there_!'

Jaime towered over her; bristling with anger at her beautiful stupidity.

'If you think that I would _knowingly _put you in danger just because –'

'– it wasn't _knowingly_ –' Arya scowled.

'THEN YOU. ARE. MAD.' Jaime finished determinedly.

Arya's eyes and their…interesting expression… tore away from his as Joanna let out a small, pitiful whimper, and the two of them dashed over to the cot like inexperienced children afraid a younger sibling would die.

In her sleep, Joanna's face was screwed up like a prune; a crease between her eyes; her little mouth a grimacing agony of fear.

Arya stroked Joanna's hair, the golden strands glistening against the calloused alabaster of her hands.

'It's gone, now,' she whispered, 'it's gone and it's never coming back…if anything or anyone tries to hurt you again, Mother and Father will shove a sword up their arses.'

'A _blunt one_,' Jaime concurred; touching Joanna's hand and not giving a fuck if the promise was an unconventional one to make to a child; 'very blunt and _very_ painful.'

Jo's fingers closed around his thumb, and she smiled in her sleep as though she could hear them. Jaime felt himself gripped by a wave of fear and nausea and guilt: the thought of what might have happened to this tiny living thing if _anything else had happened_…if she'd died…

_What if this ruins her for the rest of her life? What if she wakes up mad? What if she – _

He felt the siren song of Arya's eyes on him. He looked up at her. Her dark hair poured over her shoulders like an unruly waterfall; and her face was lined with emotion, but not in the same way as before.

'You said she… _warged_ into it?' Arya quietly said; everything about her tone suggesting that she wanted him to say no.

'It looked like it,' Jaime softly answered, 'but her eyes…they…they weren't…'

'Weren't _what_?' Arya asked.

'They _flashed_ white instead of…like it was rejecting…or maybe she was rejecting, I…'

Arya gave an audible swallow.

'It looked like it was…fighting her…or defying her, or…'

Arya's eyes were closed in a desperate attempt to control herself.

'Seven hells,' she murmured, 'seven fucking hells.'

She opened her eyes and looked at Joanna, who was now gently snoring.

'She must have been so frightened.'

'Arya, there's something else.'

'What?'

He only just had time to realise that he had no desire to tell her about the something else before she was standing before him and poking him violently in the chest.

'_Alright, I understand_; you don't want to tell me; you want to spare me; you want to protect me; it's very sweet and it's very considerate and I appreciate it –'

'Oh no you don't.'

' – but _I suggest that you fucking tell me before I_ –'

'_Alright_!'

Arya folded her arms and nodded her head in approval as Jaime began to speak.

'When Jon and I, that is when _Snow _and I began to fight it, it seemed to forget about her. Then she went to help Nymeria and touched her…and it forgot all about us, and went for her again. Only her.'

Arya's face was so white that Jaime feared she was going to faint. He reached carefully out for her, expecting to be shoved. Instead, she stepped into his embrace and put her arms weakly around his waist; her forehead touching his chest.

'I'm scared, Jaime.'

'I am too.'

'The warging must come from my family –'

'– but where's the rest from?'

'I hate it when you ask the obvious.'

'Someone has to, little wolf.'

Arya gave her head an abrupt shake, as though clearing it of something tiresome.

'Old Nan used to tell us stories about…magical people who could change their skins and make it snow –'

Jaime couldn't help the obviousness of his skepticism.

'_Magical people_?'

Arya gave him an angry look.

'They could also turn naughty children into teacups; what do you want me to say? You asked.'

Jaime paused; trying to ask what he wanted to ask in as un-idiotic a way as he could muster.

'Can many people in the North warg…that is, can they do it like you can?'

'I never met any except my brother. My other siblings all had wolves, but I never saw –'

She cut herself off.

'I dream of them sometimes, and their wolves, and I know that they're the same, but I never saw…It doesn't matter anyway. They're dead.'

Jaime said nothing. Arya continued.

'I've heard stories about people north of the Wall who can do it.'

'So who can warg into white walkers north of the Wall?'

'No one can do that anywhere.'

They looked instinctively towards Joanna again. Jaime felt Arya's fingers crook in the small of his back; saw the little crease reappearing on his daughter's forehead…and he remembered it again: fighting, failing; his child in danger; his being unable to do anything; her fear coursing through his veins like his own blood; the nausea of it; the nausea of helplessness. Panic swept over him again; panic, terror; the sight, the feeling, of the impossibly-strong, unbleeding thing with the pale blue eyes that had danced slowly like a curse as though to further enjoy the killing; _helpless, weak, half – _

Arya's hands cupping his cheeks were a wrench back into the real; Arya's breath; Arya's lips; Arya's mouth and the warmth inside it; Arya's voice in the back of her throat as his lips parted and his arms pulled her tight against him; the world spinning in a slipstream of grey to form a centre once again:

Her. Here. Jo.


	17. Chapter 17

Arya was in no mood for gusty bloody journeys to the top of the Wall in rattling iron cages.

She had caught a diabolical cold from running about in her shift the week before and was so eager to dispel the memory of her – a _Northerner_ – succumbing to such a lily-livered disease that she had become paranoid about doing anything that might stand the slightest chance of making it worse. She was also eager for Jo to stop remarking 'red nosie' every time she saw her (Arya was convinced that Jaime had put her up to it).

But her brother's face had been so desperately eager to please; so childlike in its desire to have the conversation that she knew they had to have, that she hadn't found the heart to say no to him.

She was leaving today with her husband and her child. She wanted to get Jo away from this place; away from the slightest chance of…_whatever it fucking was_ happening again. She wanted her daughter's nightmares to stop, and her nights to be as untroubled as her days spent running happily about the training yard at Castle Black, playing tricks on the brothers and falling over from the weight of the sparring swords she tried to steal.

She wanted Jon to leave this place with them, but knew better than to ask him. And she knew that if she didn't talk to him now, she never would.

_But we _have _talked,_ Arya thought, half-nervous, half-desperate as the cage rattled steadily upwards; Jon's hand heavy and protective on her shoulder; _we've talked lots over the past week;_ sometimes with Jaime there, often alone; with her ghosts standing all around them. Their presence was easier here, because they were Jon's ghosts too, and sometimes when they talked of Winterfell, the lines in his face would vanish, and he would look like the boy that she had last seen seven years ago. A child of fourteen. Happy. And her brother.

He was sad now. It was like sadness had invaded him and turned him into someone else that it was somehow good for him to be. When the thought came to her, she didn't understand it.

She thought of the wound in his leg. She thought about all the other parts of his body where the walker's sword could have been buried. She thought of him, dead. She shuddered.

They reached the top of the Wall, and when Jon opened the cage with the practised ease of someone who had done it a hundred times, Arya strode to the edge with equal confidence. Jon seized hold of her at once; afraid that she would fall. When she didn't, he mussed her hair and put his arm around her, and it felt as though she were standing within a crack in time; a crack in possibility; as though it were possible that when she returned to the ground, she would find Mother and Father waiting for her, and Robb and Bran and Rickon – and Sansa – and she would have a family again.

Arya looked out at the North, and it stretched out forever.

The North. Her home. Her blood.

The cold sank into her bones like a lover, and it was a good hurt.

'You belong here,' Jon said quietly; not looking at her; 'this is your home.'

_He doesn't want me to go_, Arya thought, and she looked at him with tears stinging her eyes.

'I was born Northern and I will die Northern,' she mumbled; the tears beginning to freeze on her cheeks; 'but this is not my home anymore. I have a husband. We have a child. My home is wherever they are.'

Jon looked at her with cautious dismay, and for a moment, she thought he was going to cry too.

'But he's a _Lannister_ –'

'I know.'

'But _Bran_ –'

'I've _explained_.'

Jon grunted, and looked out at the North, as though her 'explanation' did not satisfy him in the least, and Arya knew, then, that she would leave this place with the breach between them standing wider and deeper than ever.

'Jon…you're my blood,' she stammered, 'you're all I've got left, apart from Sansa; I don't want us to end up –'

She stopped talking when Jon turned abruptly to face her, and kissed her forehead rather fiercely. His scent reminded her of their father.

They stood there for a moment, not moving. Then slowly, Jon turned once again to the North; his arm still holding hers.

'He's not so bad, really,' Jon almost-grudgingly remarked, 'when he isn't talking.'

'When he's sleeping, you mean?' Arya asked.

Jon smiled at her.

'And he _did_ save my life when he could have left me to die. He could have taken Jo and run for it. It's what I would have done in –'

'You haven't thanked him, have you?' Arya interrupted, and folded her arms in satisfaction as Jon coloured with something that could very well have been embarrassment, 'or are you just trying to tell me that you like him?'

'I most certainly do _not _like him,' Jon growled.

'Do you _respect _him?'

'He fights funny.'

'He fights like me.'

'He's good at fighting funny, and I do not hate him for it. Satisfied?'

The relief she felt almost choked her. Relief. Fear. Love.

'Satisfied,' Arya mumbled. She knew that she could expect no more than that.

They stood in awkward silence for a while; no sound reaching them but the wind. Then Jon reached out and took her hand, and everything was alright again.

* * *

Jo wanted to ride with Nymeria in the litter that had been built to transport her back to Casterly Rock; the direwolf's leg being so badly damaged that she could not even manage a respectable limp.

Jaime had answered with a resounding no.

'But she'll be a lonely direwolfie if I'm not there,' Jo pouted; stamping her foot, 'it's not fair!'

'Calm yourself, my love,' Jaime insisted.

'Listen to _me_!' Jo insisted back.

'If you sit with her, the litter will break, and then we'll have to leave her on the side of the road.'

Jo's eyes widened in horror.

'The side of the _road_?' she squealed.

'Or in a ditch,' Jaime shrugged, 'that way she'd probably die sooner. It's the only merciful thing to do, really.'

At that point, Jo burst into tears, and Jaime hung his head in sheer exhaustion before scooping her up and rocking her back and forth in his arms; her head nestled against his chest as she sobbed and sobbed.

'Lighten up, Jo, I didn't mean it,' Jaime mumbled.

'But why…why do you want to kill Nymeria?' Jo sobbed bitterly, 'what's Nymeria ever done to –'

'It was just a _joke_, Father was _joking_,' Jaime told her as earnestly as he could; 'I do that a lot; I'm sorry.'

'You have _such_ a way with children,' Jaime heard a voice remark, 'I can't _think_ why you don't have more.'

Jaime rolled his eyes. Snow.

'My aunt Dorna loves making exactly the same remark,' Jon said; turning to face his good-brother; 'only she's less polite about it.'

'Really?' Snow remarked, 'you surprise me. I thought Southern women all walked around with universal sticks up their arses.'

'So they do, but this one is fond of mistaking the stick for the sun,' Jaime replied.

Jon made no reply to that particular observation, and the conversation rapidly petered out into nothingness; punctuated only by the sound of Joanna crying.

Then Snow mumbled something in a manner so inarticulate that Jaime did not understand him.

'Say again?' Jaime asked.

Jon glared at him as though he had misheard on purpose, then blurted out.

'Thank you for saving my life.'

Jaime's mind tipped inside-out in astonishment.

_Is he joking?_

It took him less than a second to reason that the boy would not be looking so awkward (or so angry) if he were.

'I could not watch you die and do nothing,' Jaime mumbled, 'my wife would have killed me. Not that that I _would've_ let you die if – if – '

But he could think of nothing else to say, and they were saved by the rapid arrival of Arya, who immediately began to talk to Jon with all the misplaced breeziness of someone trying not to cry.

Jaime watched her face, and the bravery in her storm-grey eyes without hearing a word that she was saying. When his gaze wandered to Snow's face, he saw the same eyes; the same bravery; the same sadness: a man who loved his sister and missed her. Jaime could admire him for that. Perhaps someday he could even like him for it.

Arya embraced her brother fiercely, and broke away; allowing Jon to help her mount up. She arranged her leathers, then leaned down so that Jaime could pass Jo to her. At their child's waist, their hands touched, and she gave him a small smile. He loved her. Gods, how he loved her.

Alone and still unmounted, Jaime turned to his good-brother to find Jon offering him his hand. The boy looked into his eyes and did so without grimacing.

Jaime took his hand, and shook it; though they both gripped rather hard.

It would be alright. They would be alright.

'Farewell, Lannister.'

'And you, Stark.'


	18. Chapter 18

OK dokes, a quick roundup of ages. Jaime: 45. Arya: 20. Joanna: 5. Janei: 10. Aunt Dorna: 50.

* * *

309 AL

Dear Lady Arya

The other day I heard a little bird telling Lord Varys that you don't want to come to the royal wedding because you don't want to bring Lady Joanna, and you don't want to leave her at home either in case she disappears (is that a normal thing for her?) _I _am writing to you, first of all to tell you that you have an extremely good spy at Casterly Rock, and that you need to root him out before he discovers something more important than that; second of all, to _beg _you to come. _Please _come. Tommen, Uncle Kevan and Uncle Tyrion want me to marry Trystane Martell, and he's an _idiot_ who thinks he knows everything and is always being impertinent and insufferable and just… _horrible_ and blaming me for things I didn't do, and mocking me about my archery when he's never seen me shoot, and accusing me of reading _romances_ – can you _imagine _such a thing? I _hate_ him, and our betrothal is set for the opening night of the wedding festivities, and I don't know what to do: I don't want to marry him, and I need your help, or at least your advice; there's nobody else I can trust, and I daren't put anything to paper in case Varys finds it. Let Uncle Jaime stay at home with Lady Joanna – in fact, I'd prefer it if he would – but please make sure that when Tommen marries Margaery, you are there. I need your help. Please.

Yours in desperation

Myrcella

* * *

'Varys knows I don't want to go to the wedding,' Arya gravely said; suddenly feeling quite unequal to eating her blueberry pie.

'Who says?' Jaime asked; sounding annoyed.

'Myrcella says,' she replied; sounding equally annoyed.

Arya watched her husband's jaw tighten, as it always did at the mention of Myrcella, and with a quick glance at Joanna, Janei and Aunt Dorna, Jaime took a long draft of mead, and continued.

'Maybe we should smash all the walls in,' he nonchalantly suggested; the light from the windows dancing golden in his hair, 'I doubt the little birds would have any place to hide in without their perches.'

'Birds don't hide in walls, Cousin Jaime!' Janei laughed, 'they only hide in trees and hedgerows.'

'Maybe the birdie isn't hiding at all,' Joanna mused, 'what birdie would want to, when they are all so pretty?'

Aunt Dorna cleared her throat and glared sternly at the two girls, as though they had committed a mortal sin.

'_What_ have I told you two about talking when grown-ups are talking?' she scolded, sounding like a septa.

'I apologise, Mother,' Janei murmured; looking down at her folded hands like a trained poodle.

'Shit,' Jo sulked, and stuck out her bottom lip.

Arya listened to Aunt Dorna scolding Jo, and to Jaime telling Aunt Dorna to mind her own business, and thought about what her daughter had said: that maybe the bird wasn't hiding at all.

Of course there were little birds at Casterly Rock – she knew the names of most of them – but getting information out of the inner sanctum required a bird of considerable talent, and she had no knowledge of such a person's being at the Rock.

Aunt Dorna was talking to her.

'Arya, my dear child,' she said, with a trace of nervousness in her voice that made Arya feel rather proud, 'perhaps a great deal of trouble, spy-hunting and wall-smashing would be spared if you simply decided to go to the wedding.'

'Aunt,' Jaime sharply reprimanded as the sounds of a blade falling and birds fluttering against the sky seemed to fill the room like a waterfall in flood.

Arya closed her eyes and told the vision to go away. She could smell the blood on the paving stones: fresh, and her father's.

She had been to King's Landing only once since her marriage, and the visit, though unpleasant, had not been beyond endurance. But this time, she had had her fill of weddings and all the associations they carried: this time, it was the occasion, as well as the place that filled her with dread.

'But I do so dislike King's Landing,' Arya mumbled; hoping that would put the matter to rest.

It didn't.

'Only because you associate it with the passing of your poor father,' Aunt Dorna insisted.

'Not to mention Joffrey, black cells, laughter, ridicule and other unpleasant things,' Jaime snapped, and he reached out and held Arya's hand; his fingers surreptitiously loosening hers from the hilt of her fruit knife.

Arya glared at him. He grinned at her.

'What's a black cell?' Jo was asking.

'A cell that's black, you stupid!' Janei was replying.

'Stupid yourself!' Jo exclaimed.

'Mute mute!' Janei rejoined.

'Stupid fuck!' Jo shouted.

'_Jo_!' the entire table groaned.

'_Please_ don't say such things, my love,' Jaime half-heartedly told Joanna.

'You and Mother say them all the time!' Jo scowled.

'You can't argue with her logic,' Arya mumbled, her head in her hands, _I am the worst mother in the world; the worst worst worst – _

'You need to engage a septa, my dear,' Aunt Dorna suggested.

'_No_,' Arya and Jaime replied together.

'In that case, may I propose a potential solution?' Aunt Dorna asked.

'Saying 'no' won't stop you, will it?' Jaime grunted.

'Please do, Aunt Dorna,' Arya said. The old lady could be a pain in the arse, but she tended to know what she was talking about when it came to etiquette.

Aunt Dorna folded her hands in her lap and spoke gravely.

'Go to the wedding. Take Joanna along. Come home –'

'That is _not _happening!' Arya snapped.

'_Arya!_' Aunt Dorna cried, scandalised.

'_Mother_!' Jo squealed, 'I _want _to see the queen in her white dress!'

'She is not going anywhere _near _that rat's nest they call a capital until she's _at least _thirty-five,' Arya growled; suddenly furious.

'Or forty,' Jaime shrugged, 'forty is a nice round number.'

'She's going to _have_ to be presented at court sooner or later,' Aunt Dorna persisted, 'send her with Janei. They can keep each other company.'

Janei sat up very straight and tossed her golden head.

'_I_,' she declared,_ '_am going to court to see Father and Cousin Tommen, not to look after babies!

'I'm not a baby!' Jo protested, 'I'm _five_!

'What happens when you want to marry her off and nobody knows who she is?' Aunt Dorna hypothesised.

'MARRY HER OFF?' Arya and Jaime protested together.

Aunt Dorna kept going. Arya had to admire her persistence.

'Janei is only just ten, and we're already receiving offers for her hand. But who's good enough for her father? Nobody.'

Arya slammed her fist onto the table; making the silver jump.

'She is not going to court and _I _am not going to court! End of story!'

'Feel like going for a ride today, Stark?' Jaime enquired; not looking the least put out.

She glared mutinously at him.

'I can't; I have my morning levy.'

Jaime gave her a long, pointed look.

She rather wanted to ask him what the fuck he was looking at, but somehow found herself ringing the bell for Hill.

The castellan of Casterly Rock appeared at the door; looking as undead as he always did.

'My lady?'

'Cancel my appointments and present my excuses to the lords,' Arya grumbled, 'I'm suddenly inconvenienced.'


	19. Chapter 19

They rode along the coast until Casterly Rock and Lannisport became red mirages shimmering across the bay. The wind was brisk, and the smell of salt strong.

Jaime helped Arya to dismount; his arms tight around her waist; his eyes deep like fire on hers; and they danced for a little while on the beach; the sand complicating matters, as sand always did.

'You think I should go, don't you?' Arya grunted; her sword lashing out at Jaime's shoulder like a horsewhip.

'Of course I think you should go,' Jaime quipped; stepping neatly out of the way and looking thoroughly pleased with himself; 'what would I _do_ all day long? In the capital? By my_self_?'

'Fight,' Arya shrugged; lunging at him again; missing again _fuck_, _concentrate,_ 'drink. Hunt. Do man things.'

Jaime snorted with laughter.

'_Man things_?'

Arya snapped at him.

'_Feet.'_

In the split second between tapping sharply at his ankles and bringing her sword point up again, Arya felt a jarring, metallic pain in her fingers that reverberated deep into her bones and all the way up her arm.

It was followed soon afterwards by the sight of her sword boomeranging away from her like a child's toy.

Arya stared after it; seething with rage both at herself and at the smug look on Jaime's face.

'Goodness me, Stark, are you feeling alright?' Jaime purred, his emerald eyes sparkling; his body leonine in its water dancer's stance; and on normal occasions, she would have been delighted at how much his skill had grown, and how different he was from the bitter, angry, handless cripple that she had begun to train five years ago; terrified all the while that she would fail, and break him.

Today, however, she felt nothing but anger, and she glared mutinously at Jaime as he brought the tip of his sword elegantly to her throat; relishing the moment.

'Tommen will take it as an insult if you _don't _go,' Jaime sensibly observed.

'Then Tommen can go fuck himself,' Arya growled; hoping that her anger would disguise the despair she felt welling up within herself at his words; even though a part of her knew that he was joking.

Because that morning, she had thought that he was on her side. That he understood. That everyone being unhappy and angry didn't matter as long as _he_ –

He was still standing before her; still talking; still tapping ironically at the collar of her doublet with his sword as though he hadn't just – like he hadn't –

'Very well,' Jaime was obliviously observing; grinning at her as though she were some stupid _child_; 'let's think about this, _little lady_.'

That did it.

In a rage, Arya threw herself violently at him, wanting to claw his stupid eyes out of his head. Jaime smartly tripped her up by setting his leg between both of hers; Arya smartly brought him down with her by seizing hold of his shirtsleeves somewhere between the proverbial saddle and the ground; and when they hit the sand, he moved like lightning; overpowering her easily like despair; like sadness having nowhere to go, going nowhere; like memories coming again; memories of the red city.

Joffrey forcing her to swear allegiance to him again and again while the entire court laughed at her. Cersei sending her ironic crimson gifts of gowns and wigs. Being in fear every second of every minute she spent with Sansa, because Cersei had wanted them kept apart.

She remembered the morning when the news had come about Bran and Rickon – her poor little brothers, her ghosts – news of them, and of Robb's decision to attack Casterly Rock; and Arya and Sansa had been summoned to the throne room to be punished.

Arya had been with Jaime at the time of the summons – he had come with her, to court – and when the beating had begun; when Ser Meryn had driven his fist into Sansa's stomach and Ser Boros had hit Arya's face so hard he gave her a black eye – 'this one's ugly,' Joffrey had said, 'her face doesn't matter –'

When the beating had begun, Jaime had been weak from malnourishment and half-mad with pain after the loss of his hand, but he had tried to intervene anyway. He only got as far as breaking Ser Boros' nose before Joffrey told the Kingsguard to smash his stump into the floor if he continued to 'misbehave'. Arya lost count of how many times it happened before Tyrion arrived, and stopped it.

While they hurt Jaime – while he suffered without uttering a sound, all the while growing paler and greyer – she had thought he was going to die. Before that moment she had not even been conscious of caring; of feeling anything for him beyond a great deal of vexation and usually ill-timed desire.

As she thought of him dying, she had thought that _she _was dying: dying of anger and dying of misery.

_I mustn't go back there. He mustn't go back there. He'll die. I'll lose him. I'll die._

In the present, she felt Jaime's lips touch hers. The threads of memory binding the throne room together – the people, the pain – together in her mind pulled rapidly apart from each other, and the heat of fear was banished by the heat of him, the cold of him: his tongue nudging gently between her lips to coax them open; his fingers cupping her cheek as he kissed her; his voice sighing into her voice as her fists on his shoulders became fingers in his hair.

'I was well,' Jaime whispered against her mouth; his lips leaving hers to murmur into her ear and kiss the skin beneath it, 'I was well on that day; but I will never make you relive it if that is what coming to King's Landing will do. Never.'

Arya cupped both his cheeks to make him look at her, and his eyes were filled with sadness, and love; _gods he was beautiful, and hers, and here_; weren't these feelings meant to fade after marriage? Weren't people meant to get used to it?

'It was the stupidest thing,' she murmured; tracing the lines of his face; 'for a second – on that day – I thought they were going to kill you to hurt me. Then I remembered that nobody knew that killing you would hurt me. Not even me.'

'Oh, little wolf –' Jaime stammered, and kissed her again, fiercely.

The touch of his lips and the weight of his body were like a pain that didn't hurt. Arya's arms wound tight about his neck and crooked there; Jaime's lips and tongue traced the path of her jaw and throat in patterns made from breath; and as she began to rock her hips slowly against his, his cock grinding hard against her, she remembered the first time and moaned.

She could feel Jaime smiling against her throat; remembering too.

'There are _some _good things about King's Landing,' he observed; leaning up to kiss her nose.

'Oh please, like what?' Arya snorted.

'Well,' Jaime continued; innocently twirling a lock of her hair through his fingers, 'there was that one time in the godswood – or the ten odd times in the godswood, if I remember correctly – '

'_Jaime_!' Arya squealed.

' – which I wouldn't mind repeating, even if at the time I had no idea what I was doing – seven gods, are you _blushing_?'

'_No_,' Arya insisted; her cheeks burning.

Jaime grinned wickedly.

'But if the idea doesn't appeal, then –'

'I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of responding to that, Lannister.'

'– then I don't suppose you'll be much interested in hearing that Walder Frey's going to be there?'

Arya stared at him. For one moment, she thought she was going to burst into tears. Then a smile began to curl around her lips, and unpaid debts to seem long overdue.


	20. Chapter 20

Dear Jon

We said goodbye to Jo this morning and it was horrible. She's just a child, so she doesn't understand. For her, the royal wedding is all flowers and prettiness and ivory brocade. In a way, I hope it stays thus: then she will not miss me as much as I will miss her.

Last night she had another nightmare, and in the morning, she was still frightened by it. She clung to my waist when we were about to leave and wouldn't let me go. When Jaime gently tried to prise her fingers away – her fingers and mine, because by that time I was holding her again – she threw her legs around my waist as well and begged me not to leave.

By the time we _did _manage to leave, things were a complete shitstorm. Jo was crying her heart out, and I was sobbing like some stupid baby; asking Aunt Dorna ten thousand times if she knew where this was and where that was, and what Jo liked and didn't like, and where she hid and what she said, and which things to keep far away from her (knives, inkwells and salt dispensers).

'Listen to your Aunt Dorna in all things,' I told Jo, trying to sound like a lady.

'What if she tries to make me go to sept?' Jo snivelled.

I replied, 'then run away'.

Jo started laughing uproariously, and when Aunt Dorna started scolding (just as uproariously), Janei took advantage of the situation and hopped into the carriage without saying goodbye, as though she couldn't get away sooner. The little lady flatly refuses to ride a horse to the capital and Jaime and I wouldn't be caught dead in a carriage. The three of us have placed bets on which of us will try to kill the other first (Janei's money is on Jaime and me trying to kill each other).

I'm worried about Jo. She's five years old, swears like a pirate and never stops tearing her clothes from being up trees and under furniture. I know that it's my fault for not being an example of a proper lady, but it's not as if Jo lives without any example AT ALL – Aunt Dorna is thoroughly ladylike and practises often – but is so religious and so stuffy that she might as well be a septa. I try very hard to act like a lady, and in public, I think, I succeed. In private, I don't try at all. Neither does Jaime. I know that we _should_ try. I know that we have to. I know I should get someone to help both me and Jaime. But then I think of my own suffering under the tutelage of poor Septa Mordane, and once I've stopped feeling bad for speaking ill of the dead, I think about taking Jo and forcing her into a world where she does what she has to and what she is expected to, not what she wants to. I know you can't always get what you want, but…fuck it, Jon. I don't know what to do. A few days ago the question of _marriage_ was discussed at breakfast. _Marriage._ Jaime nearly had a stroke. What the fuck do we do if someone wants to marry her, or if at some point for some stupid, unknown reason she _has _to marry; such as if the law of inheritance doesn't get changed? I just want her to be happy. As she is now, she never will be. And yet I also want her to be herself, and to be free. What do I do?

Jo asks about you very regularly, and she made me promise to ask you to always keep Ghost close at hand. She keeps having a dream in which he runs away from you and doesn't come back. I've tried explaining that poor Ghost probably just needed to take a piss, but she would not be dissuaded. Jaime also sends his love, and wishes to know whether or not you've been to Mole's Town yet.

Alright, I could very well have omitted that last part, but being a fight-intermediary is too much fun for the moment.

Stay warm and _remember to eat_.

With love

Arya.

* * *

Little sister

You are not a bad mother or a bad example. The world is just a complicated place. If you need help, find someone who understands that, and they will be of more use to you than an army of septas.

As to marriage, you are worrying about nothing. Even if the law of inheritance _doesn't _change, you are Joanna's mother. _You're _the person who decides if she _has _to marry – though if she's any child of yours, I think she'll have her own ideas on the matter.

Ghost is away from me quite a lot these days: he doesn't find sitting between four walls very exciting. Sometimes I don't either, but I know that nobody can do this but me. I don't care if I sound arrogant. It's just the way it is. Tell Jo that Ghost only leaves me to hunt. It's only half-untrue.

As for Jaime, you may tell him that the answer to his question is up his own arse.

_You _stay warm and remember to eat.

I love you

Jon


End file.
